Category Archives for Business

Welcome to your Biz Bomb episode of the 360 Health Biz podcast where we provide a quick tip to blow your mind and help your business. And today’s Biz Bomb is about IGTV and a juice upload tip.

We love IGTV because you can record it with your phone and it's very low maintenance. Plus IGTV videos get more engagement and more reach than other types of content that posted on Instagram. But sometimes it can be a pain in the butt to upload and we’ve heard from a few people that they have this trouble too.

Like any great IT agent would suggest, close your programs and restart. That’s right, if you’re having troubles uploading your IGTV video (like if it’s taking FOREVER to upload or it stops uploading and says failed uploaded) then what you want to do is restart your phone and make sure that all your other apps are closed down.

When you are uploading a video from your phone, it uses a lot of power and can send your phone into overload (think of it like burn out when you’re stressed) so the thing to do is shut it down and restart. 9 times out of 10 this will work and you’ll be able to upload your video with ease after you restart.

If you're listening to this on the podcast and you found this helpful, just screenshot this episode, share it to your stories, mention @360healthbizpodcast, and we will share it to our stories. Just let us know in that story, what were your biggest take-homes and did this work.

If you guys don't know what IGTV is, IGTV is basically Instagram's sister app. Not sure what you would call it, but it's basically an app that is both separate to Instagram and integrated in Instagram all at once. But basically, IGTV allows you to record up to 10 minute vertical videos, so video shot with your phone, and then you can actually add a preview into your Instagram feed, and also link to it from your Instagram stories, even if you don't have 10K followers and don't have the swipe up feature.

Right now, Instagram really wants IGTV to succeed. For that reason, they are actually giving a lot of engagement to people who utilize IGTV.

Now, I love IGTV because I can record it with my phone, it's very low maintenance. Anything minimal, anything easy that has good bang for its buck, I'm a big fan of. Right now, my IGTV videos get more engagement and more reach than other types of content that I post on Instagram.

But what you may have noticed, and I definitely came across this quite a few times and I've had a few people message me about this, is that you guys are having issues uploading your IGTV. Okay? I was having this issue over and over and over again. Basically, what you might experience is that you upload your video to IGTV and it gets to maybe like 50 or 60% and then it stops and nothing happens. Or you might get an upload error where it says it failed to upload. That might be really frustrating because you're like, "Man, I just made this fucking video and I really want to share it, but I don't know how to get it onto this app."

I get it, that's frustrating. This happened to me over and over for a year. Finally, I asked my partner, Ryan, my boyfriend, because he is a photographer, a filmmaker, so he knows a lot about video. He was like, "Kendra, delete your apps, close down all your apps, restart, try again." This is actually what fixed the problem.

Basically, if you are getting that upload error, what you want to do is you want to just restart your phone and make sure that all your other apps are closed down. Because anytime you're uploading video, it takes a lot of, I don't know if the right term is bandwidth, or power, or let's just call it juice. If there are other apps that are sort of distracting it or taking up power or speed, then that might actually interfere with your IGTV actually uploading.

It's actually amazing. I think something I have learned in tech that usually if something's not working, the solution is often just to restart. If something is fucking up on your computer, if something is messing up on your phone and you're like, "Can't figure it out," just try restarting. Because honestly, 9 times out of 10, that's usually what fixes the problem. This is also true for IGTV. I find you just need to restart your phone, make sure no other apps are open, and upload. That fixes the problem.

It's funny because I have access to this information because my partner is a filmmaker, photographer. I never asked him because I'm a dumb dumb. It's like I've been struggling with this for like the past year, where my videos are taking like two days to upload and I'm like, "Man, I just can't plan this. I want to share this content. This goes along with my launch, but I can't get these videos onto IGTV." Honestly, that simple little tip fixed all my issues.

So if you guys are having this issue with IGTV, just make sure to restart, make sure all your apps are closed down, and reupload. I almost guarantee that you will not get that upload error or that extraordinarily long upload time.

Okay, guys. I hope this was helpful. If you are hanging out on IGTV with me right now, because we actually post these episodes into our IGTV channel on video. So if you want to connect with me, or ask me questions, or let me know if this problem or this tip actually helped solve your problem, make sure to head to our account at 360healthbizpodcast.com, and go over to our IGTV channel and leave a comment.

If you're listening to this on the podcast and you found this helpful, just screenshot this episode, share it to your stories, mention @360healthbizpodcast, and we will share it to our stories. Just let us know in that story, what were your biggest take-homes and did this work. Let me know. I want to know.

All right, guys. We will come back to you in one week from now with another full episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. I will talk to you then.

It’s 2020 – a new year, a new decade, a new plan to tackle your business goals and excel! But where do you start when it comes to planning? We have Kathryn Hofer joining us on today’s 360 Health Biz Podcast episode to chat all about planning for your life and your business.

First things first when it comes to planning – you need to prioritize what is most important to you. And guess what? Sometimes that doesn’t always have to be business. If you are feeling unhealthy or having a family crisis – that is your priority because your business will not be successful if you are not able to dedicate your full self to it.

Kathryn gave us a history lesson on the word priority – that’s right priority, not priorities. It was a singular word for over 500 years until the 1900s when it became plural. So when did we go from having one important priority to having multiple? We are only one person and can only put 100% effort into one thing at a time. Thus priorities is simply unattainable.

In this episode, Kathryn discusses:- approaches to planning, including the next step and project planning- determining what your maintenance tasks are (no, this isn’t changing the oil in your car..though you should do that a few times a year)- “no means not now” and creating boundaries in business- the 2x rule when it comes to learning tech stuff- time management tips- planning as an action word and creating the framework to activate

Kathryn Hofer is the founder of Modern Planner, an online community designed to take the dread out of planning and help people live more intentionally. Lovingly referred to as the “champion of boundaries and guilt-free intentional living,” Kathryn is passionate about helping overwhelmed and overworked people slow down, create space for what matters, and make meaningful progress toward their goals. When she isn’t hosting a Planning Party or connecting with the members of her community, you can probably find Kathryn hanging out with her family, spending time outside or curled up with a good book.

Connect with us on social:instagram.com/360healthbizpodcastfacebook.com/360healthbizpodcastinstagram.com/kendraperryincinstagram.com/sleeplikeaboss_

TRANSCRIPTS

Christine H.: Hello everyone, and welcome to this brand new episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. Today, we are a threesome again. So, we have my wonderful co-hostess, super, super sweet and smart and cuddly and I love her to bits, Kendra Perry.

Kendra Perry: Hello.

Christine H.: Hello. This echo is coming in, yes, hello.

Kendra Perry: [crosstalk 00:00:24].

Christine H.: Then, you do have myself, Christine Hansen. Then we have a wonderful guest with us today, and we are going to talk about planning. Just in our pre-check already the word overwhelm is something that we hear over and over and over. So our goal is for you that by the end of this episode that work will not be in our dictionary anymore. You will know exactly what to do. Kendra, take it away and let us know who our mystery guest is today.

Kendra Perry: Awesome. We are hanging out today with Kathryn Hofer. I hope I said your name right, Kathryn. I feel I should check this beforehand, but I'm not organized. Kathryn is the founder of Modern Planner, an online community designed to take the dread out of planning and help people live more intentionally. Love that. Lovingly referred to as the Champion of Boundaries and Guilt-Free Intentional Living.

Kendra Perry: Kathryn is passionate about helping overwhelmed and overworked people slow down, which I know is all of you guys. She helps them create space for what matters. And make meaningful process towards their goal. When she isn't hosing a planning party or connecting with the members of her community, you can probably find Kathryn hanging out with her family, spending time outside. Or curled up with a good book. What's up, Kathryn? Thanks for being here.

Kathryn Hofer: Thank you guys so much for having me. It's always fun to talk about the things that I love. Planning makes me a little giddy, so [crosstalk 00:01:49].

Kendra Perry: I love that.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:01:51] let's put this aside. Let's just try and wing it, which works too. But I do suspect that it's probably a lot more draining than otherwise. [crosstalk 00:02:01]-

Kendra Perry: I feel like there's a connection between lack of planning and overwhelmed. Would you agree, Kathryn?

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, I definitely think those things pair together. Then sometimes it's not just the lack of planning. What I've been noticing, especially in the last year, is its people's perspective of planning creates the overwhelmed.

Christine H.: So, walk us through that. What would be the typical thought? And I'm absolutely sure that once you tell us, people are going to go, "Oh yeah, me here." So walk us a little bit through the general perception and what you discovered is actually behind it.

Kathryn Hofer: That's a good question. A lot of people feel like planning is restrictive. That's a huge one. So that they feel like, "Okay, when I create a plan, then I have to do exactly what I planned." But the best part of planning is that it's flexible. It's meant to adjust with you. So helping people shift and realize instead of being restrictive, that planning is actually freeing is huge mental shift.

Kathryn Hofer: Once people understand that, then that tends to help them understand the planning process a little bit more. Because your plan is meant to serve you. You are not meant to serve your plan. So the whole point of planning, like I talk about it this way ... Actually, I just did a workshop last week with fresh out of high school girls. It was so cool to see, even for them, they don't have decades of wrong behavior, or misconceptions about planning.

Kathryn Hofer: But even realizing for them, they all thought you create a plan and you do it. And if you don't do it, then you're not planning. I was like, "Well, planning," I'm like, "what is that? You guys are fresh out of high school." I'm like, "Planning, it's a verb. It's an action word."

Kathryn Hofer: So what that means is that actually if we are planning properly we're constantly adjusting, shifting, making changes so that our plan serves us. Rather than feeling like we have to fit into this little box. So planning being restrictive is a huge, huge pitfall that I find that people fall into.

Kendra Perry: [crosstalk 00:04:01]. I think I've had that perception to some degree, because I like room for spontaneity. I like to, how do I feel this week? What do I feel like working on? So when I see this plan in advance, which we just did because we're doing this year long mastermind, I was like, "Oh, my God, that's crazy. I can't believe that's all planned out a year in advance." But I think I like this flexible framework that you're talking about. And-

Christine H.: You have to follow through. What you start you have to finish. If you don't finish you're a loser, or you're flaky. So I think it's just this indoctrination as well, and it just doesn't work for everyone. Not everyone works in a linear structure either. It is funny, because Kendra and I, we say it all the time, we're so different.

Christine H.: So she's like, "How should we plan this and this?" I'm just like, "We can do whatever we want to do." So even if we said the schedule is this way, we can just change it. But it's true, we're so different. Something that would be interesting for me to ask you is actually, either you have people who are absolutely ...

Christine H.: They love to do lists and go in chronological order. And then you have the people who might not go in a chronological order, and who are a little bit more organic. Do people plan differently? Is there-

Kathryn Hofer: Absolutely.

Christine H.: Oh.

Kathryn Hofer: Absolutely. I mean I feel like that's a huge question. But before we jump into how people plan, because I'll tell you four of the really simple planning approaches that I talk about on Planning Parties. But I want to touch on one of the things that you said, because some people are more linear with planning, or whatever.

Kathryn Hofer: So, I believe that a life well planned is a life well lived. Because I think that planning really helps bring structure. But the other thing that I think we can't forget in that conversation is that life doesn't go as planned.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:05:46].

Kendra Perry: Yes.

Kathryn Hofer: Right?

Kendra Perry: That's so true.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:05:49].

Kathryn Hofer: But we create these plans thinking that life is going to be totally perfect and that nothing's going to happen, and we don't ever leave white space for life.

Kendra Perry: Right.

Christine H.: Very true.

Kathryn Hofer: So then when life happens and throws us off, or a kid is sick, and home sick for three days of the week, and it throws ... we haven't accounted for that, for that life happening. So that's a big thing with planning that I think is forgotten a lot. I just don't want to leave that unsaid, because I think it's super, super important, and very much overlooked.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:06:20]. So true, and it also closes you to opportunities I guess. If you are leaving space for either emergency, which would be the negative. But also, when you leave space for opportunity sometimes things just fall into your lap. Or you'll just have a creative spot and you just run with it.

Christine H.: I love it, because Kendra and I have both been saying, "I might do this and this next year off the cuff. Literally, when I feel like it and when it hits me, and when I think it's the right thing to do." It's fixed in the plan, but I have it in my head. And I'd like to do it off the cuff if I want to.

Christine H.: I think having enough space in the plan to just do that whenever you want to, is just crucial, either opportunity ... Or if you get sick or if your kid gets sick, or if ... I don't know, let's say your server breaks down or you [inaudible 00:07:06] website. I don't know, stupid things like that, they just happen. I mean life just happens for sure, so this is a super great point. Thank you.

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, no problem. Most of us cram and fill our lives, like when we wake up to when we go to sleep, every day, every week, every month. Then we wonder why we're not making the important things happen.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:07:25].

Kathryn Hofer: It's like, well, we have to create some space first. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Do you still want to touch on how people plan differently, and four of the simply approaches?

Christine H.: Yes.

Kathryn Hofer: Should we dive into that?

Christine H.: I would love it.

Kathryn Hofer: When I talk about planning, I share four really simple approaches. Now, these are not the only four, but this is just a way of helping people realize person, and even sometimes every project can be a little bit different. And then that's totally okay. Getting people just used to experimenting with stuff. Because let's be honest, a lot of planning and schedule and all of this is just experimenting.

Kathryn Hofer: It's like you try something and then you see if it works and you notice, and then you learn from that. So the first one is next step. When people are very creative, maybe they're more a type B, super spontaneous, and they've never really planned a lot, then I say, "Start with the next step approach." All you do is say, "Okay, I want to update my website." Great. Well, that project is freaking overwhelming, and you probably won't get started with it, if you don't break it down a little bit.

Kendra Perry: Right.

Kathryn Hofer: But if someone's nervous about creating a project plan, which is one of the other approaches, then just do next step. Just say, "Okay, I want to redo my website. What's the first thing or what's the next step that I should take to move that forward?" Write it down. That's what a lot of people keep this all in their head. Write it down. Put time in your schedule, do it. Then when you've done that say, "Okay, now what's next? Now, what do I do next?"

Kathryn Hofer: That can be when people are really overwhelmed, it's a huge project, when they're new to planning. So just that next step is just a really simple way of moving it forward. But it's not deadline or timeline driven. It's just like, "What's the next thing I'm going to do?" Okay, write that down, do it. "What's the next thing I'm going to do?" Write it down, do it. And just keep moving like that.

Kathryn Hofer: The second big one is project plan. That's kind of the opposite, where you've got this big project and you say, "Okay, I want to do this. How am I going to break that down?" So, we talked about project planning in the sense like I like to keep it super simple. And be like, decide your direction, figure out what the end goal is and where you're heading.

Kathryn Hofer: Identify the obstacles. What are the things that could stand in your way? If somebody's building a business or creating a website, but they've got their kids. And their kids are all young and not in school, childcare, focused time, that's going to be an obstacle. Maybe someone has a chronic health issue that they're working around. So some weeks they feel great, and some weeks they don't, that's something to be aware of. This is a constraint or a potential obstacle.

Kathryn Hofer: Then what it is, is breaking down the main big milestones. I mean since we went with the website, and was the first thing that just popped in my head, we can use that. But, what would some of those milestones be and those phases be? Say you want to work on your website over three months. Then put together two week sprints. Okay, the first two weeks might be doing a full website audit. And what do I have? What do I need to create?

Kathryn Hofer: Then the next two weeks might be mapping out the new pages, and copy. Then the next two weeks might be finding all the images and the links. And what are the opt ins going to be? Do you know what I mean? Then it's working with somebody who could help with code. You map out this two week big picture blocks.

Kathryn Hofer: Then the last step in project planning is getting really, really detailed. So in those two weeks what are all of the tasks and actions? I mean it can seem overwhelming, but this is why we do this. Because if you can get down to 20, 30 minute tasks and actions, then every time you sit down, and in your calendar it says, "Work on website," you just go to your list and you do the next thing on your list.

Kendra Perry: [crosstalk 00:11:05].

Kathryn Hofer: And you know that it's only 20 or 30 minutes, so you can do it. What happens is most of us keep our projects so big, that then we keep procrastinating and pushing them into the future because we don't know how to start. So that's a big thing when it comes to project planning.

Kendra Perry: What would you suggest for people? Because I feel like some of our people, they're like, "I want to do this. I want to do this," but they've never done it before, so they may not even know, what are the tasks involved in this project? Or, what I've come across a lot is I'm like, "Oh, this will take me two hours, and I'm going to put aside some time for that." Then eight fucking hours later I'm like, "Oh, my God, I'm not even halfway," right? Because you just obviously with online business you encounter tech things, or something's not working.

Kathryn Hofer: Absolutely.

Kendra Perry: How do you plan for all the shit? Or just maybe not even knowing what are the steps of a project?

Kathryn Hofer: What I recommend people do, is you most likely know someone that has done a similar project before, so reach out to some people. And be like, "Hey, you did a rebrand. You did a new website." Or, "You created a new opt in and a funnel, what did that look like for you? Would you be willing to share some of those steps?" And asking people for feedback. Or what was the biggest lesson they learned? Just getting that input from other people.

Kathryn Hofer: One of the things that I talk about a lot of times, is because people always say, "Well, I don't have enough time to plan." Yeah. I hear it all like you wouldn't believe, at least weekly in my Instagram DMs. And on every single [crosstalk 00:12:36] thing I do.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:12:36].

Kathryn Hofer: Because our culture teaches us to cram everything in and just do it, so we don't actually plan out. But then we run behind and we feel stressed, and it's this cycle. So one of the things that I recommend for people that say, "I don't have enough time," is to always use the two X rule. I mean that's a baseline. So if you are doing something new for the first time, or for the first few times, always double the time that you're allotting in your calendar.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:13:01].

Kendra Perry: [crosstalk 00:13:02]. That's a good call.

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:13:05] always use the two X rule.

Kendra Perry: That's very wise.

Kathryn Hofer: Be like, "Huh, I've never invoiced clients before. Oh, I think this project will an hour," at least give yourself two." Even on the personal side like, "Oh yeah, I can go get groceries in 45 minutes, and I'll be back home," just double it.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:13:23], and I'm late. I'm one of these people-

Kathryn Hofer: Totally, I mean there is a sense of optimism in that. But there's also, we don't understand, most of us anyway, don't know how much we can do in what period of time. And we're not really good at that, so I encourage everyone to track and schedule. So get a really good time tracking app. And every time you're working on a specific project, know how long it takes you. Especially things that are recurring.

Kathryn Hofer: If you're doing things over and over, know how long it takes you. So then you can be like, "Okay, my monthly ..." Writing, scheduling, and creating all of my Instagram content for a month, I've been doing it for three months now. I've tracked the time. I know that it takes me three hours.

Kendra Perry: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh, my God.

Kathryn Hofer: And I've learned that I can't do that all in one day. I need to break that up into three different pieces. I need to brainstorm, outline, come up with ideas. I need to write it para-images, and then I need to schedule it. And those need to be three different work blocks.

Kendra Perry: Right.

Kathryn Hofer: Right? So [crosstalk 00:14:26]-

Kendra Perry: No, that's super smart.

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, so understanding those patterns and how that works, then it's like, "Okay, so I need three hours blocked out on three different day every month to do that." Then when you're planning your next month, you block in those times. That's the only way we learn about those things is actually having data.

Christine H.: Yeah, absolutely. I think that time tracking is something that I adore. I don't do it for me, but I do it for my assistant. For me, it was really interesting to analyze how much time she has on which project. Then also to see, is it worth it? Did we build momentum over the last three months in those chunks of time? Were those chunks of time actually ... do they add to our bottom line?

Christine H.: Obviously, you can't say after the first week, but after a few months it's become very clear which efforts we're actually starting to convert, and which ones didn't.

Kathryn Hofer: Absolutely.

Christine H.: So we could just drop those, because it was just like, "Look at this chunk of time, but we actually haven't gotten any leads from this. Let's chop it." I think a lot of the time we fly blind, completely blind after how much time we invest into this. I think it's because we don't consider it our business. We don't consider money [crosstalk 00:15:38]. It's just time, it's free, but in the end it's a job.

Christine H.: So, it is monetized, even though if you do it, it's different if you pay someone. But because most of our people do everything themselves, they consider it free, which it's not. So, [crosstalk 00:15:52]-

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, time is valuable.

Christine H.: Exactly, and I think most people don't understand that. Then they just overwork themselves so badly. Kendra, actually I think that's probably something we should integrate into Mastermind. Make it mandatory for our people to just track themselves for a while.

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, it is really smart. I don't know what you guys are using to track your time, but I use Toggl. It's a free app-

Christine H.: Yeah, we use it too.

Kathryn Hofer: ... and that's what all my assistants and people use to track. They send me the time report at the end of each month, which is really helpful. So they send me that with the invoice. I had a previous assistant in the past where I was looking up the time report and I'm like, "Man, she's taking four times as long to do this one task, and it's been months." This was actually after a certain amount of time I realized that, that wasn't going to work out anymore, because it was just ...

Kathryn Hofer: I realize I do things faster, also I do things shitty, so that's part of it. Because I don't care about things like spelling mistakes and little fuck ups, so obviously someone working for me cares about those sort of things. But eventually I was looking at how long it was taking your assistant, Tamara, to do things, versus the assistant I had at the time. It was four times as long, and I was like, "Okay, this is not working." So I love that thing about time tracking, I think that's really valuable.

Kendra Perry: I do too. That's been [crosstalk 00:17:10]-

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah. It was really key actually time tracking in me figuring out this spring. I was feeling out of alignment with some things in my business. So I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to look at my last few monthly reports." And I looked at how much of my time was going to different places, and I was like, "Well, this is why this feels out of alignment because I literally have no time to do marketing or connect with new people. Or, grow my community because all of my time ..."

Kathryn Hofer: I was like, "No, not happening. I don't want to continue this." So it's really important even just for us as business owners to know where that time is going. Because it's all about prioritizing, right? The more simple and focused we are, the more simple and focused we are the more we're going to move things ahead. And a lot of times we don't want to track because it's so overwhelming. And what we know, we're going to realize about how we're using our time is like, ah.

Kendra Perry: There it is. Yeah, totally. [crosstalk 00:18:05]-

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah. I wanted to just mention I think in the beginning for all you new business owners out here, you really have to put aside a lot of time for the tech stuff. Because some of the people I work with, they can't figure out how to use Google Drive or Dropbox, and these simple things. So I know it's going to take them four to six times as long as my other people who have tech skills. Right?

Kendra Perry: [crosstalk 00:18:28].

Kathryn Hofer: I think when you don't understand tech, you have no idea how long it can take to do things, and learn it. Right?

Christine H.: Great. And afterwards, it's going to go so much quicker because you can streamline everything. And that just takes you a second, but it is a learning curve for sure. One thing that we talked about before as well, is I totally get it, people [inaudible 00:18:48] differently.

Christine H.: When we talked to our people, we saw that a lot of them, for them planning is purely business. Like, "I want you to launch a group course. I want you to launch in 101 signature program. I want to do a retreat. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to do a platform. I want to get [inaudible 00:19:06] running. All of these staff, I want you to launch a Facebook group."

Christine H.: So we actually asked them, "So where is time?" And it was interesting, because we made them also schedule in their personal project. Some people, it wasn't even on their radar that they should schedule in their holidays, their vacations, their personal projects. That, that was actually valid, I would even say. And that, that time is ultimately contributing to your bottom line. Which seems ridiculous because it doesn't have anything to do with your business per se.

Christine H.: So, I don't we've succeeded quite yet at having them understand. So, if you manage to make people understand why scheduling in your personal goals or wishes, or whatever you want to do, it's just as valid to bring you money. Because in the end that's what we want to do. Then having your [inaudible 00:20:02] and courses and stuff. We both would be so grateful. The world will be so grateful, so maybe you can help us with that.

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah. I think, really it comes down to what's important to you. We have to remember that our priorities ... So, an interesting thing, can we just do down a nerd bunny hole?

Christine H.: Yes.

Kathryn Hofer: The word priority was singular in the English and for over 500 years, right? It wasn't until the 1900s that it became plural. So this created a massive problem because instead of having one priority, now we can have multiple apparently. But it's not really true.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:20:43].

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, but it's not really true. In this moment my priority is being here on this call, showing up and 100% focused. If I was also trying to do something else, I wouldn't be successful at either of them. So I think part of the conversation with personal and business goals planning, hobbies, trying to have time for everything, quote/unquote, is realizing that every season looks a little bit different.

Kathryn Hofer: That season could be as short as one day, or that season could be a week. Or it could be a month, or it could be a year. And understanding that we do need to look at all areas of our life. I have a course called Set Vision and Plan Change, which is a big picture of back up, look at your whole year. Look at all these areas of life. There's 18 of them so it can seem a little bit overwhelming.

Kathryn Hofer: But I show everyone like, "Here, professional has three subcategories. Three of the 18 are actually work. The rest of them are all different things. It's personal relationships. It's your health, and health is physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual. You know what I mean? So my helping everyone see, "Okay, these are all the areas of my life," and I make people choose ... I mean I don't make them, I recommend that people choose three to five main areas for a whole year to focus on.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:22:09]. Oh, fuck, I would die. Yeah.

Kathryn Hofer: It is really hard.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Kathryn Hofer: It is really hard, but what it helps us do is ... I mean this is like then touching onto goal setting, which I don't believe in annual goal setting. But that's a whole other conversation. So I think when it comes to this personal and business stuff, it's just realizing that we are one person.

Christine H.: Right.

Kathryn Hofer: And there's a lot of aspects to who we are. Sorry about that. My phone was off, and then it randomly started [crosstalk 00:22:39].

Kendra Perry: It's all right, no worries.

Kathryn Hofer: We are one person. And even though one of our main focuses might be our business, there are still other areas of life. What happens is if we are not making minimal deposits at least into these other areas of life, then what happens is we end up burning out. I have a background of clinical depression, chronic pain. Some massive health issues that I walked through and I changed my life and how I was living. And made some pretty massive shifts.

Kathryn Hofer: But I had to see my health as actually important, and it can be really hard. Like when you're wanting to be in a season where business is important, realizing, "Oh, I have personal stuff." Marriages don't need to fall apart just because you're building a business. But you need to know what's important.

Kathryn Hofer: So some people, that looks like having very set boundaries for working. And when they're not working they're with their family. So when I get home from picking my daughter up from childcare, I don't touch work until she's dropped off and I'm back in. Unless I have an evening meeting or something like that.

Kathryn Hofer: I don't work in the evenings. I don't go on my work social media on the weekends. So for some people it looks when they're working they work, and when they're not, they're not. So that's where I think that priorities and learning how to plan, and how your time works and how your energy works. There's so many things interconnected in this conversation, but realizing these different areas of who we are. How we want to move things forward.

Kathryn Hofer: Then creating a really simple plan to make that work. Creating some boundaries, all of that. Learning how to set great goals for the year, or focus areas, it's all part of that conversation. And maybe your personal life and health is not a priority for you right now. It might not be, but in a year and a half when you burn out and you're in the hospital with a health issue, suddenly it becomes a priority.

Kathryn Hofer: Sometimes, as horrible as it sounds, it takes something really dramatic happening in a different area of our life to realize that we're one person. And we have a lot of different needs. And just focusing on our business isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and I love that speak about burnout, because for me, something I've realized is having more time to relax. Like making time for meditation. Getting out in nature and actually working less hours in the day. I'm more productive during that time. I use that time better because I think it's this dangerous thing where you're like, "Oh, well, I'll relax when ..." It's like, "When I get my business to this." But when you get there you're going to have something else.

Kendra Perry: Then you're just going to keep putting off your personal self-care. Which is so important when you're a business owner, because you can't just have your business. It can't be the only thing you have, right?

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah.

Christine H.: Exactly.

Kathryn Hofer: One of the good questions, the book The One Thing, by Gary Keller and Jay ... I'm not going to say his name right. Pasternak, something like that.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I've heard about it a few times.

Christine H.: I've heard of it, yeah.

Kathryn Hofer: They ask this very specific focus question. And it's what's the one thing I can do, such that by doing it everything will be easier or unnecessary? So I hosted a regret-free wrap up challenge for people who were feeling overwhelmed and unfocused, and all the things to do to finish up the year. In doing that I brought up this question, and I made them choose one thing that they wanted to finish by the end of the year. One, and we created a plan for that, and we put that in our schedule.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:26:12].

Kathryn Hofer: The comments from people, realizing actually the thing that's going to make everything else easier or unnecessary is actually carving out the time with my family that I want to.

Kendra Perry: [crosstalk 00:26:24]-

Kathryn Hofer: That's what I want to do, and by realizing that ... Yeah, by putting my out of office on my thing, and creating boundaries. We had all these conversations about these amazing ideas. But when they realized by actually carving out the time to be with my family and spend time with them over the holidays, I'm saying yes to this thing. And saying, "This is the most important thing, but it's also going to make everything else easier."

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:26:49].

Kathryn Hofer: Suddenly, because it's like, this is my priority. This is what's most important. And saying yes to this does mean saying no to other things. Life is all about trade offs. But I just think that's a really-

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:26:59] saying, "No," is a big piece.

Kathryn Hofer: ... important thing to think about, right? And it helps us determine what our priorities are, and what we should be working on first.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I think a lot of our listeners, because they're new business owners, money is a big concern for them. So a lot of the coaching I do with people is telling them what they should be saying no to. Because they're like, "Oh, this thing came up." I'm like, "Yeah, but that's actually not moving you towards what you want to be doing. That's building someone else's business. That's way more benefit to them than you."

Christine H.: Oh, my God, yeah.

Kendra Perry: Do you know what I'm saying? And [crosstalk 00:27:30]-

Christine H.: And they despise it as in this is an opportunity for you, and in truth it really isn't.

Kendra Perry: Yeah.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:27:34] just read between the lines.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I would love to know can give our listeners some advice about how to create boundaries in that way? Because I mean I'm guilty of this too, I spread myself too thin all the time without meaning to, without realizing it. Then I'm just like, "Fuck, my week is crazy [crosstalk 00:27:53]."

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:27:54].

Kathryn Hofer: Boundaries are really tough. [crosstalk 00:27:59]-

Christine H.: Goddammit.

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah, I mean it is a big experiment. It really is, because you have to figure out ... What I always recommend people do though when it comes to boundaries or commitments or opportunities, is start with less. I mean one of the things I talk about on Planning Party is just something called Maintenance Tasks.

Kathryn Hofer: So know what the maintenance tasks are in your business. What are the things that every month, or every week, that you have to do in your business to keep your current commitments running? Not the things you'd like to do, but your current clients, the things you do. What do you absolutely have to do? Start with that. Know how much time it takes you to do that. Figure that out, what that number is.

Kathryn Hofer: Figure out whether ... because some people do writing better in the morning, better in the afternoon. Figure out how long it takes you to do your maintenance tasks every week and every month. Put that in your schedule. And basically create a document or a card in Trello, or a note in Asana or whatever about these future ideas and opportunities.

Kathryn Hofer: Basically, what I recommend people do is when they're trying to figure out boundaries and what this looks like, and setting up their ... Trying to prioritize a little bit, I actually recommend that they say no to every single opportunity for a whole quarter.

Kendra Perry: Wow, okay.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:29:21].

Kathryn Hofer: Which can seem really overwhelming, and let's be honest, but this is an experiment.

Kendra Perry: Right.

Kathryn Hofer: So before we can know all the extra things we can take on, we have to know what our current workload, how much time that takes us. And how much energy that, that takes, and the investment that, that's going to be. What that could mean is, someone pitches, "Hey, would you like to come on the podcast?" "Hey, I'd love to, however I'm fully booked out and not able to do any interviews until April. Would that still work for you, if we could schedule it then?"

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:29:53].

Kathryn Hofer: It doesn't mean saying no. So let's pull this in, no does not mean never.

Kathryn Hofer: But that's a big part of it. So when we're starting out or when we're doing a business refresh, it means saying no to these things which we'd love to do that might grow our community. But we have to figure out this basic, so always figure out maintenance tasks. Start with that. Then what you do is you create a really simple system for what you can say yes to.

Kathryn Hofer: So, I have some examples of my past boundaries that I've had. I have limited myself to one coffee chat a week. And that's actually how it was set up in Acuity, so I couldn't book ... I had my bookings available for one-on-one for coffee chats, whatever. But Acuity actually in the settings, it was no more than one every week.

Kathryn Hofer: Having an auto responder on your email so you don't feel guilty about not replying to emails within 24 hours of them hitting your inbox. [crosstalk 00:30:59].

Kendra Perry: Oh yeah, I love that. Mine says, "I may not get back to you for a week."

Christine H.: I know, and I just got Outlook. We just said that I could have an auto responder for the holidays. Because usually use Mail, and you can't do it. You can do it with Rules, but if someone else has an auto responder, they basically play ping pong until eternity. So it's not working very well.

Christine H.: I just got Outlook and I just typed in the text. It's literally, "Look, I need my beauty sleep, dude. [inaudible 00:31:25] this and this time chunk." And I cannot wait to hit that enable button, and to have that just go out. I mean I think I'm going to cry the day, which is Friday until I hit that button. It's just like it's official. It's official. People know, I'm gone. Totally, this is just what I'd like, so I'm really-

Kathryn Hofer: I have an auto responder on all the time. And when-

Kendra Perry: Yeah, I do too.

Kathryn Hofer: Before my daughter was born it said, "Hey, I'm about to have a baby. I have no idea when I'm going to get back to your email. But I'm taking about three months off from my business, and I'll do my best to get back to you." Then basically, next steps. "If you're new to my community, or you're applying to a newsletter, thank you so much. I'll try to ..."

Kathryn Hofer: It's things like that, that I think ... I mean we're kind of veering away from your original question. But it's like, how do we create boundaries, or shut off shiny object syndrome? Right?

Christine H.: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Kathryn Hofer: So my biggest tip is know what your maintenance tasks are. Know what you have to do to run your business. How long it takes you, get that in your schedule. Create really clear boundaries and guidelines for how often you'll take things on. So maybe it's how many coffee chats you have. Maybe it's, I only want to schedule two podcast interviews a month. Set things like that, and then have this great list of all the stuff you'd love to do in the future, and then revisit it.

Kathryn Hofer: In my community, I host free quarterly planning parties. So every quarter we're planning, we're looking ahead. We're prioritizing, we're planning stuff out, we get it in our schedule. But then I do the same thing every month. So then just encouraging people, whatever that looks like for you, revisit.

Kathryn Hofer: Have that list handy, and when you're planning your quarter, being like, "Hey, is there anything on here I could maybe pull in." Because so many times I think we have this perception of, "If I don't do it right now, I'll never be able to do it."

Christine H.: Yeah. Do you use any tools? Do you have any planners you use? Anything like that, that can guide you through this?

Kathryn Hofer: I use my Planning Party framework. That's what I use, and what my community uses. The goal is to turn that into a planner that then anyone can use.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:33:38].

Kathryn Hofer: But because I'm working on my own project and my own system, and trying to get that better to share, I don't use another planner right now. If people like big fat books, I used PowerSheets for years by Lara Casey. That was a good tool because it has monthly prep work built in, which is a big part of what a lot of planners don't have. It's just like, "Here, plan your stuff."

Kathryn Hofer: But every month you should be reevaluating what are my priorities? And what's still important to me? So I think it just depends on ... It's about creating that system and that flow of checking in. And sometimes that's a weekly check-in and a monthly check-in, and a quarterly check-in. Creating these rhythms of making sure that what we're working on is still important to us, which is what the Modern Planner framework is.

Kathryn Hofer: So what I teach people about planning is you always start with prioritize. So most people just start by planning, "I'm just going plan." But you have to start with prioritizing. You prioritize and then you create a plan. Because let's be honest, you shouldn't waste time or spend time planning something that you shouldn't be doing anyway. Right?

Kendra Perry: Right.

Kathryn Hofer: I'm not just a plan everything person. I'm like, "No, plan the right things." So, prioritize, plan, and then we act. The acting piece is where all the time management productivity people sit. They teach you how to act well. How to set up your environment. How to manage your energy. How to ... all of these things fall under act. But then that's the fourth step, which is adjust.

Kathryn Hofer: That's the checking in part. So creating that rhythm, whatever that looks like for you, of adjusting your plan, making changes. If you're mid month, and you're like, "Okay, these are the three things I wanted to do. That one's just not going to happen." Then, put it on a list for a future month and just get rid of it. Maybe you're swapping it with something else, that's the beauty of planning.

Kathryn Hofer: So that framework is actually like a circle, that we're constantly doing prioritize, plan, act, adjust, prioritize. And we just do it over and over and over again. That's what makes planning active, and that's what helps our plan serve us.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and I think there's this big-

Kathryn Hofer: [crosstalk 00:35:47] got to keep-

Kendra Perry: ... [inaudible 00:35:48] around people just wanting to stick with what they said they were going to do. I don't know where I've heard this, but I've heard that people are way more likely to stick to something they committed to do. Even when it's clearly not working, and it's not benefiting them. Because they're like, "I have to stick it out."

Kathryn Hofer: But that's what we're told with goal setting now.

Kendra Perry: Yeah, true. That's true.

Kathryn Hofer: That's my issue with annual goal setting, is that we pick these numbers and these goals so arbitrarily most of the time.

Kendra Perry: Right.

Kathryn Hofer: So what happens is it's like, "Choose a goal for this month. Choose goals for this year." So it's like we pick, "Okay, these areas, and I'm going to pick these numbers. And I'm going to lose much weight, and bring in this much income." But it's not coming from a basis of what's important to us, or what our season even looks like.

Kathryn Hofer: So that's my issue with annual goal setting, because we're taught to, "Stick to your goals. Meet this, see it through." It's like, "Okay." Goals typically set us up for failure, because they use data and numbers. And they create these unrealistic expectations. And these deadlines that mean actually nothing, if we really think about most of them.

Kathryn Hofer: So smart goals or goal setting really only works if you have a lot of clarity about what's most important to you. You're brilliant at prioritizing. You already have a clear vision for your whole year. And now you're breaking those smaller tasks into goals. And being like, "Okay, now, for this next month this is one of my goals this month." But it's achieving something that's tied to a bigger idea.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:37:14]. Yeah, right.

Kathryn Hofer: That's when goal setting works. So I encourage people to actually write something, what I've experience statements. What an experience statement is, is there are phrases that are about setting you up for success. So describing what you want to feel and experience in an area of your life, rather than just a number that you want to hit.

Kathryn Hofer: So they set us up to win. And they create this framework that gives us freedom to adjust and change easily without having to recreate it. For instance, someone might set a goal, "I'm going to lose 20 pounds this year." "Okay."

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:37:51].

Kathryn Hofer: So what happens, if you eat healthy, you get outside, you work out and you don't lose 20 pounds because you increased your muscle mass.

Kendra Perry: Right. Yeah, good point.

Kathryn Hofer: Now, suddenly we still feel like a failure, even though we made progress. So for me, my philosophy is that progress is perfection, and it's not-

Kendra Perry: Right.

Kathryn Hofer: That is. If you were making progress toward the big things in life that you want to do, then that's perfect. You're winning. So an experience statement of that might be, "I want to experience strength and confidence in my physical body."

Kendra Perry: I love it.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:38:28].

Kathryn Hofer: Now suddenly we're getting creative with these things that we can do that moves forward physical health, which is an area of our life, in a way that's setting us up for success. So one quarter that might look like cleaning up our diet. Another quarter, now that, that's become a habit, that might look like getting outside more because the weather's nice again, and moving. Right?

Kathryn Hofer: It gives us that flexibility because it's not this goal that's defined like this, that now we feel like we have to stick to it. So it's about getting rid of the guilt. [crosstalk 00:38:56].

Kendra Perry: There is so much guilt. There's so much guilt. It's crazy, and I just feel like people, they put ... I love what you said about deadlines, how most things ... People are putting these deadlines on themselves. They're like, "Oh, I'm making such slow progress. Oh, my God, I'm failing." I'm like, "You're making progress. Who's putting a deadline on this other than yourself," right?

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah.

Kendra Perry: Everyone's going to build a business at a different speed, right?

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah.

Kendra Perry: Some of us have to learn more than others, and it's not an easy thing to do. So, [crosstalk 00:39:27].

Kathryn Hofer: And different people have different obstacles that they have to overcome. I've been pretty much part-time in my business since I started it. I've been in business four and a half years ago. But people that I met when I started my business, a lot of them are further ahead than me in terms of numbers, profit, income, whatever, but I'm okay with that.

Kathryn Hofer: I'm growing at the pace that I can physically handle with my requirements. And I'm still changing lives and selling things. And I'm doing what I love, but it's just going to be slower. And slow growth is still growth. It doesn't-

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:40:01].

Kendra Perry: Yeah, and I think I'm hearing this intentional growth from you. Because what I see a lot of people doing, is they grow just to grow. And I was guilty of this. I remember being at a counseling, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm working all time. My boyfriend's pissed off at me. But I'm doing this, and I got to ..." She was like, "So, what are you going to do with all that money?" I was like-

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah. That's something that a lot of us don't think about, or that's we start a business. For instance, I started a business rather than getting another full-time job. Because I knew that if I started my business I'd more flexibility to maintain my health. And be able to maintain some of the things and habits that I'd built that I needed the space for.

Kathryn Hofer: So that's why I started my own business. And I wanted to do something I loved, that I could talk about for days and hours, obviously. And I wanted to do it in that way. But so many times, then we dive into all this stuff of what it is, especially in the online business space, and we forget why we actually started. For me, it's to be able to do what I love in a flexible way that supports my family. And it allows me to spend time with them.

Christine H.: Yeah, and I feel that's like merger of The Desire Map in a way. If you guys know Danielle ... What's her name again? Crap.

Kathryn Hofer: LaPorte.

Christine H.: LaPorte, exactly. But The Desire Map is purely just doing the values and figuring that out. Which is an important piece, but it doesn't give you a lot of structure in terms of [inaudible 00:41:32] and so forth. So I feel like if you'd pull these different things together, which you are basically allowing people to do ... You do have a beautiful 360 holistic framework [crosstalk 00:41:39].

Christine H.: So, speaking of, if we have people who are like, "Okay, it all makes sense, but I'm already feeling overwhelmed. I do understand the benefits of all of this, but I want to have someone guide me through it." Which is what I would [inaudible 00:41:53]. So, how can they reach out to you? How can they get that guidance of basically having you walk them through it so that they don't freak out?

Kathryn Hofer: It's tough, because the thing that's going to make the biggest difference is somebody doing a quarterly planning party.

Kendra Perry: Right, so-

Christine H.: But where do they do that?

Kathryn Hofer: But that is 90 minutes investment of time. You know what I mean? That's where we have to realize for every minute we spend planning, how much time we're spending on the other end. So even though it seems like a commitment, and it is, but if you just visit Modernplanner.com/qpp that's where you can sign up for the quarterly planning party. I do it live once every quarter.

Kendra Perry: Awesome.

Kathryn Hofer: Then in between I provide an option for you to watch it on demand whenever you want so that you can create your quarterly plan now. You don't have to wait until the start of a new official quarter.

Christine H.: [crosstalk 00:42:53].

Kathryn Hofer: So even though it's a time commitment that would be my recommendation for people, is to just-

Christine H.: Absolutely.

Kathryn Hofer: ... create your quarterly plan and get clear.

Christine H.: It's a no-brainer, I feel. If you think you don't have enough time, this is what you have to start with. We're going to link to it on our show notes as well. So if you guys haven't heard it, it's going to be on there as well. So, find the blog and just look at this episode, and the link will be there.

Christine H.: Yeah, well, this has been really, really helpful in so many different ways. I think that we have a really good grasp for why we need to do this holistically. Why it's not enough to just ... Why goals don't work, which I find is amazing, and just those different steps. So thank you so, so much. It has been really helpful for me too actually, and just sometimes just realizing what is blocking us [crosstalk 00:43:40].

Kathryn Hofer: Yeah.

Christine H.: So, that was amazing.

Kathryn Hofer: Thank you guys so much for having me.

Kendra Perry: Awesome.

Christine H.: Absolutely. [crosstalk 00:43:47]-

Kendra Perry: Well, thanks so much everyone. Thanks for hanging out with us. We will be back next week with our Biz Bomb series. And in two weeks for another full episode. Thank you, Christine. Thank you, Kathryn. And we love you. [crosstalk 00:44:00].

We've got a quick tip Biz Bomb for you today that is going to change your productivity in 2020!

You know that say work smarter, not harder? The truth to that statement revolves around how you set up your day to be productive. In today’s Biz Bomb, Kendra shares with you her juicy tip on how she manages her work day to be uber productive with no burn out at the end of the day.

Do you ever work a full day, only to end the day asking yourself what you actually got accomplished? We experienced the same thing UNTIL we made the bold decision to remove reactive tasks in our mornings.

What are reactive tasks you ask? Well the biggest one, and the one we talk about today, is emails. Often times, emails are putting out fires – something’s not working on your website, your client can’t access your calendar, another client is upset about this or that. We just end up getting into this very reactive state, which ultimately kills our creativity and our productivity.

So how can you get around this? Kendra suggests limited checking (and responding) to emails after 12pm. This allows you the whole morning to get the important stuff out of the way, like showing up on social media, creating content, working on your email nurture sequence, or actually just working with clients.

If you have a team you work with, let them know that you only check your emails (and any other communication tools you use) after 12pm. To be even MORE productive, try to give yourself only an hour to check emails. So between 12-1pm (or whatever time you choose) you check emails, put out the fires, and then get back to running your business. And usually we check our emails one more time before end of day so nothing is left overnight in case it’s actually urgent.

We challenge you to try this out and let us know if this works for you​!

What's up, guys? Welcome to another Biz Bomb episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. This is our quick tip series that basically gives you a super-juicy tip. Your head explodes because you're so fucking excited.

I am Kendra Perry; I am your host. Today I'm going to give you a super-juicy, super-quick productivity tip. This is something I just recently started doing. I honestly don't know how I didn't think or figure out to do this before, because it's been a total game changer.

But what I hear a lot of health coaches tell me is that they don't have enough time; they always get caught up in the admin, the side tasks that yes, are important to a business, but don't necessarily grow your business or keep you on track for what you actually want to accomplish, which might be showing up on social media, or creating content, or working on your email nurture sequence, or actually just working with clients, or maybe just taking a fucking break. Right?

What I recommend; this has helped me a lot; is to get rid of all your reactive tasks in the morning. Okay? I've heard this from a lot of coaches that the first thing they do, before they maybe even have breakfast or a cup of coffee, is they are getting onto their email and answering emails.

Now what you have to remember is that answering emails is a very reactive task. Oftentimes what we do when we start answering emails is we just have to put out the fires, right? Because this didn't work, and this person's having a problem with this, and this is glitching, and this person's upset about this, and this person wants this.

We just end up getting into this very reactive state, which ultimately kills our creativity and our productivity. Then at the end of the day makes us feel like, "Well, I just worked all fucking day long. I'm exhausted, but I didn't actually accomplish anything that I actually wanted to accomplish." Okay?

Emails are very reactive. Ultimately, when we get on email, we're going to be putting out fires. For a lot of us; this is going to depend on the person; but for a lot of us, mornings can be very productive times for us. Me personally, this is when I'm most productive. By about 2:00 p.m., I'm kind of done. Okay?

So I really need to make the most of my time in the morning. What I've started doing is I don't actually jump onto my email until noon. I don't actually jump onto my team chat, which is Slack. I use chat for Slack for team communication or Trello, which is our project organization board. I don't actually look at those until noon. Okay?

I've told my team this. I have let them know that I don't actually look at anything until noon. And that's fine, because I'm not in the business of emergency. Personally, I don't think anything is emergency, and everything can always wait; even when people maybe think things are an emergency.

Honestly, unless you are in anaphylactic shock and your throat is closing up, it's not an emergency. If you are in anaphylactic shock, you should go to the hospital, because that's not my problem, right? I don't deal with emergencies, and neither do you. Right?

So between noon and one I go on my email and I go on my Slack channel and I check Trello. That is when I get into those reactive tasks. Because ultimately as business owners, as CEOs of our business, we are going to have to put out fires, right? We are going to have to deal with that stuff.

Whether you have a team or whether you don't, ultimately we are going to have to get into fire-putting-out mode. But I don't want us to start our day with that because it's very reactive. It probably triggers our fight-or-flight to some degree, and it basically starts off our day in this really stressful mode.

Then sometimes you just can't get that shit out of your head for the rest of the day. It totally interferes with your ability to actually create, be creative and actually finish the tasks that ultimately move your business forward. Okay?

I challenge you to try this out and let me know. Come to our Instagram account at 360 Health Biz Podcast. Leave us a comment, send us a DM. Comment on this video because I am on IGTV right now. If you want to hang out with me in video, you can head to IGTV. But if you're just listening on the podcast, that's cool too.

But let me know if this helps, because this has been a really big game changer for me. Because as soon as I'm on email, I'm off on a tangent. Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I'll just quickly check my email," and like an hour later I'm just finally finishing all the stuff that I needed to do.

I also find that when I wait until noon to go into that reactive state, I'm a little bit in a better head set for it because I feel good because I'm like, "Well, I've already completed X and X tasks. I feel good. I've gotten a head start on that."

Now I am consciously opening my email or realizing that there's going to be some stuff in there that I don't like, that I don't want to deal with. There's going to be some fires to put out. There's going to be some stuff I'm going to have to go on the runaround for. That is okay. I put aside time for that, then I check once more at the end of the day.

But I challenge you to just not go on your fucking email first thing in the morning, especially not before breakfast, before morning routine, before coffee. You know, like I said, this puts you into a reactive state.

So try this out. Let me know how it goes. Send us a DM on Instagram. Tell us if this helps. Or if you're listening on the podcast right now, take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram stories, mention us at 360 Health Biz Podcast and let us know, did this help? Because we would love to know. Because personally, this has been a really big game changer for me.

All right, I hope this helps, guys. Remember, I'm Kendra Perry. Next week we will have a full episode for you on the 360 Health Biz Podcast. We will talk to you then!

Have you put a crap load of money into Facebook advertising only to hear crickets? You aren’t alone. Like many marketing things, there is an actual strategy required to be successful with Facebook ads. But where does one start? Should you wing it, should you DIY it, should you hire someone, what kind of budget do you look at? In today’s 360 Health Biz Podcast episode, we have Meg Brunson to break this all down for us…plus more!

Before you even start putting out Facebook ads, there are three things you absolutely MUST have..a proven product (with a proven sales funnel), and email list with an email sequence, and some money to play around with because like we have said in previous episodes, social media marketing is all about testing.

In addition to testing Facebook ads, in this episode we discuss:- the difference between a lead and a conversion- how Facebook ad algorithm works- what can & can’t be advertised on Facebook- the biggest things that health and wellness businesses get flagged for on Facebook- the do’s and don’t for ad images- how to write engaging Facebook ad copy- scheduling Facebook ads & the review process- Facebook pixels

Meg is a former Facebook employee who provides marketing support to parents who want to build their business without feeling guilt over the "balance" of family & entrepreneurship. Her clients enjoy predictable leads/traffic and positive ROI within 3 months - and spend more time making happy memories with their kids than they do stressed over their marketing.

Connect with us on social:instagram.com/360healthbizpodcastfacebook.com/360healthbizpodcast

@kendraperryinc@sleeplikeaboss_

TRANSCRIPTS

Christine H.: Hello everyone, and welcome to this new episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. Today, you are being greeted by my wonderful, sexy, beautiful, smart and [inaudible 00:00:14] today, cohost [Stace 00:00:17] Kendra. By myself, Christine Hansen. We also have a very, very special guest for you here, and it's very timely because we have a huge rant yesterday on YouTube about this topic. Strap your seat belt on because this is going to be a juicy one.

Christine H.: It's going to save you tons of money and it's going to make you tons of money, and what's not to love about that? Without further ado, we're going to introduce her, so Kendra, take it away.

Kendra: All right. We have Meg Brunson here. She is a former Facebook employee, which is very exciting, who provides marketing support to parents who want to build their business without feeling guilt over the balance of family and entrepreneurship. I love that. Your clients enjoy predictable leads, traffic, and positive ROI within three months, and spend more time making happy memories with their kids than they do stressing over their marketing. Awesome. Welcome Meg. Thank you for being here.

Meg Brunson: Thank you for having me.

Christine H.: Brilliant copy, by the way.

Meg Brunson: Well thank you.

Kendra: Well, I love that so much. Before we started and before we hit the record button, you were telling us a little bit about your life right now. You can tell us a little bit more about what you're up to and how you got into Facebook ads and Facebook marketing.

Meg Brunson: Yeah, so let me start back a little ways. I was always a little bit entrepreneurial, but for a long time I was just side hustling it until my third pregnancy. When I got terribly sick almost died at times, and told my husband, "I'm done punching a clock and I'm going to do this entrepreneurship thing full time. I'm going to make it work, I'm going to figure it out." That's what I did, I was kind of an accidental entrepreneur, as I like to call it. I had to figure out marketing.

Meg Brunson: At that time, it was a little bit different because this was, gosh, seven, eight years ago. Facebook marketing was totally different than it is now, but I leveraged it and loved it, and was very successful with it then. I quickly became kind of go-to-person in my circles for Facebook ads. This is a very abbreviated story. We moved across the country. I interviewed for a job at Facebook. I almost didn't even get the interview because they were like, "Wait, you were a criminal justice major and you've got no experience with traditional marketing channels. Are you sure this is job you want to apply for?"

Meg Brunson: I was like, "Oh, yeah. I've thrown myself into learning this stuff." They gave me the interview and were like, "We're going to test your knowledge, this isn't just" ... "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll do it." I interviewed, I got the job. I worked at Facebook for about a year, so it wasn't a terribly long time and it was quite simple [inaudible 00:02:59]. I tasted the entrepreneurial freedom and flexibility. I at that point had four children, and I just didn't want to punch a clock. I didn't want to put 40 hours in at any job, no matter how-

Kendra: Yeah. I get that.

Meg Brunson: -more present to my family. I left Facebook, I built my business on my own for two years before I left my four bedroom home. We piled my entire family, my husband and I, and four kids into a 35 foot RV. We've been traveling the United States for four months now, with the goal of hitting all 48 contiguous States in a year. We're 28 States in.

Christine H.: Wow. I'm a huge fan of tiny house nation and [OCA Haida 00:03:46] stuff. I can only imagine, but we did. Okay, I'm a drama queen. You have to know, I do love my luxuries, but we did 10 days of ... It's not [inaudible 00:03:57], it's much smaller. It's like one of these Kempster kind of things, like the California thing than where you have the car and you have your, you can lift the roof and stuff. We did make it happen, but it's just not my thing. Having four children in there, I'm like, "Woman, there's something different to you?"

Christine H.: I don't know. I'd use my mind entirely, but I think it's the best story ever. Yeah, obviously, it says as something I think about entrepreneurship. I agree, you can never go back. It's just once you know it, once that flame is kindled, there's just no way that it's ever going to go back. Facebook is just, it's the coolest thing in the world. I would know to say that I've worked for Facebook, it's just so fun. You could just have my coffee and it would have been fine.

Christine H.: What obviously was so interesting to us was that, your business that you've now been building is on Facebook ads. One of the things that we vented about was that, people even very beginner beginners. Let's say, people who happen a little bit in business but haven't really had lots of clients yet or who have maybe just created a course without even looking at what they can do or without experience of [inaudible 00:05:13] sold in different words, but in essence that Facebook ads is the silver bullet.

Christine H.: If you have a huge ad budget, you will see a return in investment guaranteed. I will quote, and the reason why I can run, I know a lot about this business because we both been working with Facebook managers. We've both invested tons of money and we did the whole, that was like a year ago, I would say. We did the whole weapon off funnel off thing and it went wrong in so many ways. We left a lot of money on the table.

Christine H.: We talked about how you actually need to know what you're selling, but I think it woke us a little bit through when is the golden time to actually say, "Okay, I'm ready for Facebook ads." Should you wing it, should you DIY it, should you hire someone, what kind of budget do you look at? Also, because we are in the health space, what are the challenges you might expect there that, let's say, if you hire someone who's only used to work with business coaches or with maybe product services, might not expect and probably gauge wrong.

Meg Brunson: Oh, there's so much.

Christine H.: Go ahead.

Meg Brunson: How much time do we have? I would say, before you start running Facebook ads, there's a couple of things that you should have clear. The first one is, I really honestly believe you should have a proven product that's made money. [crosstalk 00:06:46]. That's the most important part. But Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, he has enough money, so do not run ads on Facebook just to donate to his fund. He doesn't need your money. Do not be investing in Facebook ads until you have a plan to get that money back.

Meg Brunson: I think one of the number one mistakes I see people make is they're like, "Oh well, I just posted really good and Facebook told me if I spent $20, I would reach 10,000 more people and so I boosted the post." I'm [inaudible 00:07:21], "Did you make any money or I don't know. You just donated $10 to the Zuckerberg fund, you don't even know what it did for you." I tell people to ignore those little messages from Facebook.

Meg Brunson: Those are like the candy bars in the grocery store aisle. [inaudible 00:07:42], they're quick, they're easy. It's Facebook's way of getting you to experiment and spend some money, which I don't think is a bad idea. But I think people do it too quickly before they really even understand how Facebook ads work. I did the same thing. I'm going to be really honest here, we were in '70, I made some of the same mistakes. I was running Facebook ads and at the time, I was trying to get people to join my list. That was my number one goal.

Meg Brunson: I would boost posts then I would look at my list to be like, "Well, I got these many people and normally I get this many people so it's working, I think." Then I found ads manager and there were all these different ads you could run. I'm an official person, a creative artsy person. I created a couple and I was like, "Well, they all look the same, so it doesn't really matter. I'll just run this one."

Meg Brunson: Now I know better, that's not how ads work. Number one, have a proven product, meaning that you're getting sales from it. It's important to know that you're driving traffic to an offer that people want, that your copy is right. Maybe the product is fine but your copy is not right, so prove that funnel and you can get that traffic organically from Facebook groups.

Meg Brunson: There's so many ways to get those initial sales that just not require throwing a ton of money into Facebook ads. That's number one; you need to have a funnel, a product. You need to have an email list and an email sequence.

Kendra: [inaudible 00:09:25] with that. We have people who didn't even have list. They were selling stuff and they didn't have an email list. That was just like tears in my eyes, like seriously.

Meg Brunson: I've had clients that are like, "Oh no, I don't use an email service. Can you just email me each lead as they come in." I'm like, "You've got to get a list. You need a list." People will say email marketing is dead. One of the things that I think a lot of people do is; they look at themselves and they'll say, "I don't open a lot of promotional emails, therefore, nobody does," and it's not true.

Christine H.: No, it's not.

Meg Brunson: Email marketing is not that. You need to have a sequence.

Kendra: You do. I'm guilty of being [inaudible 00:10:05] investing and my funnel is one welcome email. But I do have a weekly blog post that's going out biweekly, once a week it's for sleep and the other week is business. I have something created every week. I have to say, most of my friends aren't on my email list. But I've really with looking with Instagram and things, and how unreliable it is, it's 2020, it's for me back to the email.

Kendra: I can [inaudible 00:10:31] priority focus. I left it aside a little bit, but now that I'm like, "Okay, I have everything set up." Actually, I can now really focus on it and have the subscribers. I purge often and I throw people out if they're inactive for 30 days and it leaves me with a really, really good pool of people. It's back in my priorities. I think you can do it in ways, you can say this [inaudible 00:10:56] a lot of time.

Kendra: It's not, I think the first thing you need to do to really focus on building the list. I think it focus on building the product, the list will have been part of it. But for sure, I totally agree that email marketing is dead, right? I can tell.

Meg Brunson: No matter what your field or your expertise at, there are other people who do what you do. I am not the only Facebook ads manager in the world, but I'm just not. No matter what you do, sleep, there are other people that do ... No matter what you do, so you have to think about that. If somebody wants your product or your service, they've got a selection of people to go with. You need to hook them with your freebie, get them onto your list.

Meg Brunson: Then, how many times do you buy a product that you've never heard of before? You don't. You like it, you follow it, you research it, you get more information and you make the purchase later. I've heard seven touches. It could take seven touches, sometimes it takes more, sometimes it takes them less. People need to know and trust you, and I feel like that's one of those cliche things that everybody sells. But it's cliche for a reason, because-

Kendra: I agree. Exactly. I think you need to know that they can trust you or they need to, right from the gate, know who you are. Which is why we teach how to use your own voice, how to even figure out what your voice is, so that you can shortcut the process. Because people usually don't follow me for a long time. It's impulse buying because they are [inaudible 00:12:29], but it's an exception. Mainly in-house, it is long stock before they get in touch. That's what it is [inaudible 00:12:38].

Meg Brunson: Yeah. I know I'm kind of jumping around, but having the email list, having a proven funnel and then I think having money to play with. I don't mean we're just going to throw money away here, but ads are not a guarantee. I have to tell people this, I feel like I'm the worst salesperson because I'm brutally honest.

Christine H.: No. We're honest. It's the best sales per se.

Meg Brunson: I had a woman say, "Well, you're not making me feel very confident about this." I was like, "Well, I think there's a lot of things you have to do before we're going to see the return. I'm happy to work with you through that, but I don't think we're going to see a return in the first two or three months." She's like, "Well, then-

Christine H.: Because I feel so many people take the hard-earned cash that they've just earned, and it's like the last hurrah. They're going to say, "Okay, now I'm just going to invest it in. That's what's going to help me to make it." What kind of budget do we even look at? Because I think people have no clue how much they could need to invest or even figure out what Facebook likes and what it doesn't. What are we talking about, is it just 100 bucks, is 1,000? I was amazed that, I think people have no clue.

Meg Brunson: It really depends upon your goals and it depends on your funnel. I'll break that down a little bit because I know that's fluffy and it doesn't really answer your question. I want to look at like a typical funnel, where you want to get a lead on your email list, and then you want to get a conversion. This is very basic, like two step right [inaudible 00:14:19]. The cost for getting one lead is going to be less than the cost for getting one conversion, right?

Meg Brunson: It just makes sense because there's less skin in the game, it's easier for somebody to make that decision. If you want to run a lead-ad, you're going to need to spend less money than if you're running a conversion. I'm just trying to break down those basics.

Christine H.: By the way, what's between lead and conversion?

Meg Brunson: A lead is an email. I'm going to give you this piece of value, whether it's an opt-in or a blog post, or whatever. I'm going to give you some value and you're going to give me your email. Now you've obtained a lead. There's two ways I should say. You can do that as a conversion ad, but you can also run it as a lead generation campaign. Which is, I'm going to be honest, my favorite. The difference is, the conversion ads, you're driving traffic to your website, to your opt-in page.

Meg Brunson: We've got it all nice and pretty email, and [inaudible 00:15:18]. Generation ad is, it's all on Facebook so you don't need an opt-in page. This is really great for people who are not as tech savvy, maybe they don't have a landing page builder or may be to be just have a WordPress website, and they don't have ClickFunnels, or Kartra, or Kajabi, or something. With the lead generation ads, when the user clicks the button to learn more or sign up, it's a pop-up window internally on Facebook.

Meg Brunson: It loads faster than your opt-in page; one, because it's internal and it will also automatically populate information from the user's Facebook page. If you're asking for email, it'll automatically populate the email. That either, they use to sign into Facebook with, the most recent email they've used on Facebook and another lead-ad. It makes it really quick and easy. It's mobile optimized and everything happens on mobile, everything. Mobile is like 95 something where they see less percent of Facebook traffic.

Meg Brunson: Lead-ads are really great. Then after they submit the information, you can direct them to a thank you page and you can use Zapier. Is a third-party integration tool to link Facebook lead-ads to whatever CRM you're using: Mailchimp ConvertKit, Kartra, Infusionsoft, literally anything. I really like that for generating leads because it's quick, it's easy and it works.

Meg Brunson: Then when I'm talking about conversions, I'm talking about selling your product or service. Whether it's a course or a strategy session, or something you're actually going to pop in the mail and send to them. [inaudible 00:16:58] because that requires money, so it's going to be more expensive. You might get leads for a dollar a lead, or sometimes they're more expensive. I also tell people, it depends upon your niche, what you're selling.

Meg Brunson: At one point last, I had two clients at the same exact time. One was getting leads for $25 per lead and one was getting leads for 25 cents a lead. They were both thrilled. It can be $5 leads. On the back-end, she was selling into a series of products that culminated up to $10,000 coaching plan. Her return justified the higher lead costs. Then the 25 cent leads were like a parenting blog and she was leveraging them to get more sponsors and stuff. That was really great for her.

Meg Brunson: There's not like a cost per lead that's baseline, but it really depends upon your business, your nerves and how you're able to convert them on the back-end after getting them on your list. Which is why that email metric sequence is not to be ignored. Understanding those basics, now I want to step back and explain how Facebook ad algorithm works. When you select what type of ad you want to run and the objective, your campaign level of those ads. In order for Facebook to optimize correctly, you need to get 50 of those actions, 50.

Meg Brunson: Here's what conversion, again, I feel like I use that word a lot and it means a lot of different things, but 50 of those actions in order for the campaign to optimize. What'll happen is, you're going to say, let's just use leads as an example, the lead-ad. You're going to run a lead-ad and you build an audience. Let's just say there's a million people in the audience. I'm going to try to keep numbers relatively easy.

Meg Brunson: Facebook at the very beginning is going to serve this ad out to some people in your audience. All million will not see it, some people. As people start to respond to get leads, Facebook's going to say, "Oh, so these four people responded, what makes them unique from the other 12 people who didn't respond yet?" Then it's going to try to find the people in your audience that are most likely to give you their lead information, so that it can optimize the process.

Meg Brunson: Facebook, many people do not [inaudible 00:19:41], but they want you to be successful. Yes, they want to take your money because they're a business and that's one way that they generate revenue. If you watched the Mark Zuckerberg in front of Congress, you learned that. But they want you to be successful because if you get what you want, you're going to spend more money with them.

Meg Brunson: They're not trying to trick you, and I love taking all your money so that you're broken, upset, and never come back. It's much more lucrative if you can tell Facebook what you want, then Facebook can deliver it and then you keep coming back for more. When you set that ad, you need to get those 50 conversions, which I'm coming back to how much money you should part with this.

Meg Brunson: In the beginning, you need to test it out if you've never run a Facebook ads. You may need to put $100 into it and see how much are your cost per leads. I could talk for days about tips to get that lower and best practices with targeting, and creative, and copy, and all that stuff. But just general big picture, figure out what your cost per lead is.

Meg Brunson: Then multiply it by 50, because you need to get 50 of those in order for your ad to optimize. Now worst case scenario, you need to get 50 within a week. But the sooner you can get those 50, the better. If you can afford to get 50 in a day, that should be your budget.

Kendra: Got it. Awesome. [crosstalk 00:21:07].

Christine H.: -front-load the ad a little bit. Front-load, spend more money up front to get it to optimize quickly. Then you can downsize as you figure out what your cost per lead is and what you actually want to spend, and the ad is optimized, right?

Meg Brunson: Sure. I think it's also important, you should be making money off these ads. If the ads are [inaudible 00:21:26] you're closing sales, you shouldn't have to downsize that. You're going to want [inaudible 00:21:32] because it's going to come back at you with a profit. But again, talking about having a little money to play with, if you're just starting out, you're going to be starting with something like lead generation.

Meg Brunson: Something that's more top funnel, if you will; awareness, building that knowledge trust factor. You're not going to go right in for the kill in month one.

Christine H.: I think that's so important for people to understand because they have everything ready. It's all shiny. Then you can get that on [inaudible 00:22:02] or whatever site, and then they're like, "Okay, now let's sell this baby," and I was like, "Wow."

Kendra: Yeah. I think you guys talked about it when I had been randomly dropping off through this call because of my shitty wifi connection. But I think with health and wellness, it can be a longer touch point. People take more time to warm up. We actually talked about this yesterday. Christine has a pretty quick conversion, probably because she's done a really good job of doing her media appearances and being featured in a lot of places.

Kendra: You've got street cred. But for me, people will creep me for a long time. Especially when I was in health and wellness, people would come out of the woodworks all the time that, "I've been following you for three years." I'm like, "[crosstalk 00:22:40], where did you come from?" But that's the thing with health and wellness, it's personal. [crosstalk 00:22:47].

Christine H.: Yeah. People should just be aware that this might take them a little bit longer.

Meg Brunson: Exactly. You need to have the money to be able to invest a month or two before starting to see that return. Again, there's ways to get those costs down, but it's not always as quick and easy. Even when you hire a professional, because marketing is still a game you've got to play and Facebook changes all the time. Having a professional on hand who feels 100% on that platform, it's easier for me to respond to these changes than other people who are trying to juggle 10 million things.

Meg Brunson: But there's still an element of fasting. With Facebook marketing, you should always be testing, always. The testing process is never over because marketing changes every day. Your competition, I hate that word, but-

Kendra: It is what is, where business is.

Meg Brunson: They're trying to change to be ... Everybody wants to be the best, and try unique and different approaches in order to capture the attention of your audience. So you should always, always, always be testing

Christine H.: I agree. That is a good point.

Kendra: It's so true for all of online business, right? I think, I talk to a lot of coaches who they think they can just build this perfect business behind the scenes and then just release it out into the internet world and be like, "There it is." I'm like, "No. That's not how you build a successful business. You have to try a shitload of things; like fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. That didn't work, try again, fail. Keep going, cry a little bit, but get up, keep going."

Christine H.: Let's talk a little bit about, you've had so many different clients. I think the budget, everyone has an idea that it's not just a little slot machine where you just throw something in once and you get the jackpot. It's just not how it works. Let's talk a little bit about the challenge in that health sector. I think it might be a little bit different than products or even business coaching.

Christine H.: What is the appearance of that? I just started little bit before that with sleep, you want me to get the band because as soon as it read sleep, the dirty little filthy means, it thinks it's ridiculous facts, and it's no. It's the [inaudible 00:25:15] we sleep is another word, it's just sleeping. But for me, I usually get, immediately the ad is not approved. Then if it is, I see it very, very low relevancy score.

Christine H.: It's like Facebook is putting on the brakes because it's careful. It's like, "Okay, we'll let her play, but we have to be very careful who's going to see it because we have to be afraid of who might complain." Me, it's just like I gave up and I want to get back in the game, listening to you with very softly, just constantly having some lead generation thing to figure it out.

Christine H.: But it's been a very frustrating journey for me. Tell me a little bit about the client experiences that you've had, things that you maybe figured out. Because I really want to have anyone who's out there listening right now to really not have that experience that I did.

Meg Brunson: Sure. I think the first key is having an understanding of why Facebook has those roles to be on [inaudible 00:26:14]. Facebook's number one concern is not with businesses, unfortunately for us as business owners. Their number one concern is with the user experience, so the people that are in your audience. That can be frustrating. But at the end of the day, it's actually [inaudible 00:26:32] for us because it keeps those audiences on the platform so that we can reach them.

Meg Brunson: They've done a lot of research, not only into Facebook ad history over the past however many years, but just marketing in general and to what people respond to, and what people don't respond to. I don't know if you've ... I'm sure everybody's been to a website. Where you scrolls to the bottom and there's images that are so gross, you know what I mean, the ads and the gross images or just like weird things?

Meg Brunson: They don't want that stuff on Facebook. [inaudible 00:27:07], you're [inaudible 00:27:08] and you have to scroll away, and it's-

Kendra: Like the porn shit that you get showed when you try to stream illegal television online, right?

Christine H.: That and hypothetical scenarios.

Kendra: I see all the time. Oh, my gosh.

Meg Brunson: Gosh, I was thinking of those weird [inaudible 00:27:24] videos, that's not my thing at all.

Kendra: Oh, some people would be really into that.

Christine H.: Yeah, no. I get it.

Meg Brunson: Anyhow, stuff like that, they don't want that stuff on the platform. They also don't want anything illegal on the platform or dangerous. You can't [inaudible 00:27:42], this goes into the health sector CBD. CBD is big right now. Anything that at all is derived from the marijuana plant, Facebook does not allow so it does not matter that it is not hallucinogenic. They don't care.

Christine H.: They don't care. It's stuff that-

Meg Brunson: It cannot be on there. I'll tell you that, if that's your health and wellness business, there are ways around it. There are ways to market, lead-ads are a great way. But it's nearly impossible to run Facebook ads for a CBD business. I personally will not take them done for you. Ad management client, I will work with them as a mentorship plan, but I have seen too many accounts get shut down because people just push, push, push the limits and then Facebook is like, "No. Done."

Meg Brunson: That's one area where there's not a lot of wiggle room, and I hate being the person that says no, but I could do probably a whole other episode just on some ways to get around that. Anyhow, so that's one example. But the other biggest things that health and wellness businesses get flagged for, are images. So the images that they choose. Facebook for example, does not want you to zoom in on any body parts.

Meg Brunson: I worked with a dentist and the dentist always had a picture. It always happened to be a blonde, white woman with big beautiful teeth and would zoom in on their big perfect smile, and Facebook would be like, "No, they don't want to show perfection, they don't want-

Christine H.: Got you. If I had a lady on a pillow, it would be like, "No, too much skin and nudity," and like, "I see everyone else half-naked all around, even on Facebook." But yeah, and ads, I find as soon as it detects with this algorithm that this skin show and an urge, that's like, "No."

Meg Brunson: I'll tell you too on the topic of images, you should always be testing more than one image, always. With that, one of my favorite stories is with that dentist. Because like I said, it was always blonde, perfect teeth and she said, "That's what people wanted to see." Well, she was in Miami, which has a huge Hispanic population. I was like, "You need some diversity in your ads."

Meg Brunson: Everybody should have diversity in their ads, but that's a whole other soapbox. You need diversity in your ads. I worked with her to come up with some other images to test, and one of the images we used, actually had nothing to do with teeth. It was three fingers squeezed together. I don't know if you're a girl scout, but it's the little girl scout promise.

Meg Brunson: They had faces drawn on the fingertips and then around the middle, it looks like they have little arms that are hugging them together. Had a solid background, and she's like, "But there's no teeth, what does it have to do with the dentist?" I was like, "We're going to put it in the copy." We used copy that said something like, "No matter what brings you into our office, you are going to leave happy."

Meg Brunson: It was like offering them a free visit or I can't remember what the offer was, now is a long time ago. But that ad outperformed everything and she was like, "But there's no teeth." It doesn't matter now. Did you get the leads, did they convert? Sometimes and everybody's seen the wacky ads, which is an image and you're like, "What does that have to do with the product?"

Meg Brunson: That is somebody just testing out a strategy of getting your attention with a weird image or a cute image, or a funny image, and then selling you something in the copy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Test out multiple images, don't focus too much on one specific part of the body. Another thing you cannot do, is before and afters, which would be hard for health and wellness people.

Meg Brunson: You're selling like an acne cream and you want to show a face that's at the end on the face, it's clear or without makeup and with makeup, or before weight loss and after weight loss. These are things that you want to show, Facebook does not want that. It also goes off of health and wellness. Sometimes, I believe people can do a professional organizing gets lagged, because they have a messy room in a clean room.

Meg Brunson: That's not really what it's made for, but it's just kind of funny. So, no before and afters. Now if you really want to show a before and after, there are ways around it. You can use a carousel ad, you can show steps. So not just before and after, but like; step one, step two, step three, week one, week two, week three. You can put that in a video.

Meg Brunson: But you still want to be careful because the reason that the rule is there, isn't because they hate health and wellness businesses. It's not because they hate before after comparisons. It's because traditionally, users don't like it. I'm one of those people, I have a lot of health coaches and weight loss coaches, and stuff. I don't want to call out any one specific. They post the before and after pictures in it, it looks [crosstalk 00:32:59].

Christine H.: -different photo, it's been different lining. It's just [inaudible 00:33:03], I can get you seriously. I get it. They're not going to Instagram. You're supposed to getting lot and it just crosses me out, like-

Kendra: Right. I agree. I don't like before and after. I honestly, it pisses me off because it just highlights the body image of weight loss. It's just like a lot of people are striving, especially with women, they're striving to have this perfect body. It's airbrushed, it's not legit and really we should be more concerned about health and celebrating body types of all sorts. But again, that's another soapbox, you've [inaudible 00:33:32]. [crosstalk 00:33:32].

Meg Brunson: I would say that the other big [inaudible 00:33:39] a lot with health and wellness has to do with referring to a person's attributes in the copy. Now-

Christine H.: What [inaudible 00:33:46]? I had to really think about how to run a copy of that. God, it's like you only get a certain set of numbers of words that you can play with. It's like you have your original copy and then it's like, "Okay, actually this, this, this, this, this, this, this, you cannot use." "God, now what can I use?" I'd say. But walk us through [inaudible 00:34:06].

Kendra: Once you figure it out, it's not that hard. But I'd love to hear what you have to say, Meg.

Meg Brunson: Facebook doesn't want to be creepy. There's something creepy about signing on to Facebook. This has happened to me, where I scroll down and it's a shirt that's like Brunson power or something, and Brunson's my last name. I'm like, "How do they know my last name?" Well, it'll be like, and I know how they might be.

Meg Brunson: Or it'll be a shirt about Gemini, and I'm like, "How do they know it's a Gemini?. It's creepy," you know what I mean? They don't want you to be creepy, so they don't want you to post something that makes the user feel like they're being stalked, because that's not a positive experience.

Kendra: They do. But yes, I get it.

Meg Brunson: I'm not saying they don't sneak through, some don't sneak through. You also don't want your user to have that experience, either way they feel. I don't know, ashamed or nervous, or whatever, because you've called out the fact that they have a medical condition or that they [inaudible 00:35:17].

Kendra: Got it.

Meg Brunson: Be careful not to call out. What I typically do is, I look for the words, you and your in my copy. Because not always, but typically when you're using those words, you're within that sentence, you're referring to an attribute that they have. If you say something, like your weight, well, you're now referring to my weight. Whatever you say before or after that word is indicating whether you think I'm unhealthy, whether it's large or small, or whatever. That's an attribute.

Meg Brunson: You need to be saying that, and there's a couple of different ways you can do that. You could take the approach of, my clients typically. Like, "My clients typically benefit as I share." I hate being on the spot, it takes me forever, right?

Christine H.: Yeah. I know it's fine, but I think it's the idea that we have.

Meg Brunson: "My clients typically benefit from better self-esteem and more confidence after working with me in my coaching program," something like that. Now you're not saying, "Hey girl, you got too much weight." You're saying, "My clients typically feel there's transformation, and if that's a transformation that you long for, you should keep reading." I like going that way because it's also tooting your own horn a little bit.

Meg Brunson: You have clients; number one, if you're new. You want to let people know that you've got clients and that they're seeing these transformations. You could also do it generally, people typically, parents typically. New moms often say that [inaudible 00:37:01]. Now you're not saying that, this person often says that, new moms often say that. If that person is a new mom, she'll resonate with that.

Meg Brunson: Instead of saying you or your, trying to say it in more general terms. Also, focusing on what you're teaching, what that process is and that what the results will be. "You're going to lose 30 pounds," no. You're going to learn how to meal-plan effectively. You're going to learn how to build an exercise regimen into your already hectic schedule. You're going to learn these things.

Meg Brunson: Don't talk about what their results are going to be, because that's another area that crosses over from attributes into those claims. Unrealistic claims-

Christine H.: All right. Yeah.

Meg Brunson: But those are other red flags that we see a lot with health and wellness.

Kendra: Yeah. Another way I've gotten around it is that actually speaking about my own experience. By using I, instead of you and your. I've definitely done that talk in general terms, "Women often feel this way, blah, blah, blah." But I've also just spoken to my own experience in a lot, and that seems to get approved as well. But you're right. As you use your, or you or your, it's unapproved. It's like you just have to stay away from those words.

Meg Brunson: It's not those words that are the flag though, it's important to know that it's the context that those words are used in. Every once in a while, you can use them as long as you don't have the other words.

Christine H.: Yeah. Things that are typical health speak, so just to say.

Meg Brunson: Correct.

Kendra: I've had a few ads get disapproved, but when I look through them, I'm like, "No, I'm so sure I'm following all the guidelines," and you can actually request to review. Oftentimes when I do that, it'll get approved immediately. I think you requested a manual review or something like that to actually look at it and be like, "Oh no, you're good." Is that something that you can also recommend that people do if they're super sure?"

Meg Brunson: Definitely. I can give you the link directly to Facebook's policies, their ad policies. I know sometimes Facebook has so many links. But I'm happy to send that if you're going to put it in the show notes, and I would definitely review that. Facebook typically links to it and the disapproval box too, but I would go through.

Meg Brunson: Make sure you're really clear on that because they're only going to let you appeal it once and the more you appeal it, the more drama it is. But if you're positive, go ahead and do that appeal process. They typically get back to you in 24 to 48 hours. For that reason too, I'm going to say, I always try to plan my ads in advance. Try to schedule your ad two or three days in advance.

Meg Brunson: We're recording this on a Thursday. This would be a great day to schedule your ads so that you want running on Monday. Because if tomorrow they get denied, you can appeal them. Now the weekend can be a hit or miss, but hopefully they'll get approved by Monday and you're not out days. There's nothing more frustrating, and this has happened to me too.

Meg Brunson: Because I'm not a great planner for my own business. I'm so focused on my client's business and I'm like, "Oh shoot, I was supposed to get an ad up and running yesterday." I will get it up and running today, and I might have an issue with a disapproval that just needs to be appealed, because it happens even to the best of us. Then I'm two days behind them where I wanted my ads to be, and that can be stressful.

Meg Brunson: Try to plan ahead, so you'll be giving yourself much padding that the ads will get approved and then you don't have to worry about that.

Christine H.: I love that. Yeah, I think that-

Kendra: Just a question. When you schedule an ad, do they review it well, it's waiting to be scheduled? Okay, I just wanted to confirm [inaudible 00:40:52].

Meg Brunson: Yes. As soon as you hit publish, if you've got the ad scheduled to run in a week or whatever, you hit publish. It goes into the review process, it will get approved and then it'll say scheduled. It'll either say in review, it's still a review; scheduled, if it's been approved but it's waiting. Then it'll be approved [inaudible 00:41:13], running.

Christine H.: That's a really good tip. Yeah, I did. I already feel that. I love it. The Facebook ads is creepy in a way that you can do so many things that you can dive in more many ways. I know that it's different from Europe and the US because ours is always a bit stricter, so we don't have access to as many little tweaks.

Christine H.: Then at the same time, I've also had the more kind of criteria, you feed it, the higher your budget. Is that correct? The more you tell it to dial in and to exactly a certain person, the more you pay?

Meg Brunson: I don't think that, that would be correct. Because, it's going to depend upon how relevant your audience is. If you dial in, but you're dialing into the right people and they're responding, the costs that you're paying depends upon how relevant your ad is to your audience. If your audience is responding favorably and going through, and completing the action you want them to complete, then you're going to spend less money to get those actions.

Meg Brunson: It all comes back to the user experience. If people are responding to your ad, say positively, then Facebook is saying, "This is a good ad. We can serve people this ad and they're not going to get annoyed or frustrated, or upset." Favorable ways people can respond is, by number one, doing the thing. Whatever you want them to do, submitting a lead, reacting; so giving a thumbs up or a heart, or whatever, commenting, sharing.

Meg Brunson: All of that stuff is positive feedback. Now there's negative feedback. Negative feedback will be; you've got a little triangle and you hide the ad when you report that ad as offensive. It takes a little more effort to do that, but people do it. I've done it. It happens and Facebook will take note of that data, and then you're going to spend more money.

Meg Brunson: Because, Facebook is recognizing that your ad is ... It's banning you for some reason. That's the same reason. You might know, there used to be a rule, a text rule that you couldn't have more than 20% text on your images. Then last year, they got rid of that rule, but it was just, not really get rid of it because they just renamed it and reworked it. It's the same basic concept.

Meg Brunson: The more texts you have on the image, traditionally, the less reach you'll get, the higher your cost will be. However, that's really just a warning based on historical data. In real life application, I've had clients who images with text performed better than images without text, and we'd run those. It's one of those, you have to be testing it, you have to understand the rules, you have to know why they're there and then you have to keep that in mind.

Meg Brunson: Don't just put texts on an ad to make ... To put text down on the ad, has to be something that speaks to your user and improves their user experience, so that you'll get more reach. What we're talking about audiences a little bit, one thing I don't want to skip over either because it's so important. I usually talk about it first, but things take their own place sometimes, is the Facebook pixel.

Meg Brunson: I feel like that's one of the most often missed elements, especially from newbies. If you've been around the block a while, you've heard about the pixel and you probably have it installed. If you haven't heard about it, all it is, it's a little snippet of HTML coding that you copy from ads manager and you paste onto your website.

Meg Brunson: It sounds intimidating if you're not a developer, which most of us are not. I wasn't when I started, but it's not really that scary. Facebook has directions that walk you through it. If you're using Shopify, WordPress, Wix, literally just about any-

Christine H.: -videos, tutorials?

Meg Brunson: Yeah. I've got a ton of resources on that too, but Facebook has a ton. Whatever platform you use, [inaudible 00:45:23], and lets you track audiences or people who come to your website, so you can re-market to them later. It allows you to optimize your ads for conversions, so that's any action, any stuff or more action that happens on your website. Bringing them to page A, but wanting them to go to page B. That's a conversion, you could optimize your ads for that.

Meg Brunson: The third thing it does is, it unlocks data and analytics. You can use Facebook Analytics, just like Google Analytics. It's free, it's organic. You can also leverage it when you're running ads. I always caution people, one of the biggest complaints I get is that Facebook Analytics doesn't work. It's not the same as Google Analytics.

Meg Brunson: Therefore, it is wrong and it's not true. Is it okay, can I break down the difference?

Kendra: Yeah.

Meg Brunson: Okay. Google Analytics tracks based on cookies, and most people are vaguely familiar with this process. It's like they leave a little trail of cookies wherever you go, so Google can see where were you right before you came to this website. It's last click attribution. Those are the big fancy words, and that's what Google's done. That's how they track everything, that's how they report things.

Meg Brunson: But Facebook is a little more fancy and they're tracking based on where you're signed on Facebook. You're signed down on your cell phone and your computer, maybe a desktop at work, maybe a laptop, maybe an iPad or who knows? Most people are signed to Facebook from multiple devices. Because of that, Facebook can track across all those devices and it can track up to 28 days.

Meg Brunson: Google can track the last click, what happened immediately the moment before you went somewhere. Facebook can track up to 28 days. The example I always use is that, if I'm in line at the grocery store, I've got my kids with me and we're checking out at Walmart or wherever. I see an ad for the newest converse shoes, which are my like. Yeah, I'm buying those converse shoes, I have so many.

Meg Brunson: They're the newest print, I need to have them. But I'm in line, it's almost time to pay and my kids are throwing candy bars, and so I just can't. I close out of the website, get my kids home and I forget about it for two days. That's mom life happens. Three days later, I sign in, I Google converse so I can get back to their website. I go find my shoes, I buy them.

Meg Brunson: When you go to check the analytics, Google's going to say, "Came from a Google search. She Googled converse and bought the shoes." But Facebook is going to say, "She [inaudible 00:47:57] certain ad, she clicked on that ad on her phone. Three days later, she bought the shoes on desktop." Now if you were just looking at one, you want to have the full story.

Meg Brunson: If you were just looking at Google, you'd say, "My Facebook ads aren't working." But if you're looking at both, you're going to say, "This doesn't match." But once you understand how they track, you can nearly piece it together to figure out the actual story and see that the Facebook ads are contributing to your success.

Christine H.: Yeah. It's just a different process of thinking. I think that's might be also what I see with my traction because 90% of my traffic is organic. In ways that I'm not running any ads, but they're coming from Google. But now I only know that they've searched for it, like most of them are. But I think it's interesting because I don't know if they've heard it on a podcast before, maybe or they read a blog post somewhere where it was mentioned.

Christine H.: This is a really, really interesting thing for me to do some research on, to see where are they coming from. Are they coming from Pinterest, are they coming from ... Then just out of sight, out of mind, and then they Googled it. This is really, really interesting.

Meg Brunson: Facebook Analytics is cool because you can set up, you can see who's connected to your Facebook page and who visits your website, to see how much traffic. How many of your Facebook page-fans are actually visiting your website, and how many of your website visitors are actually page-fans. It's a lot of interesting information. You can get lost in the data there, but that pixel is important.

Meg Brunson: Even if you're not running ads right now, you need to get that pixel installed so that you can elaborate it in those ways and the pixel retains data for six months. Here we are, when we're recording this, it's November. You're like, "I'm not ready yet. It's too late, it's almost Christmas, I'm still too new. Whatever your excuses are, and that's fine."

Meg Brunson: In May, you're six months down the road, you started making money or whatever. The situation has changed and you're like, "We should start advertising to get ready for next year holiday season." Well now you've got six months of data where you can create an audience. There's some people who visited your website, a lookalike audience.

Meg Brunson: You can really jump into advanced advertising quicker because you've done this first initial step of getting that pixel installed, to prepare you for when you're ready to dive deep.

Christine H.: That's an amazing tip. I think everyone should go in and then [inaudible 00:50:24] that. This has been times, my head is spinning. I can imagine that people who are just starting out, I was just like, "Okay, I need to digest all of this, and then I'm going to go and implement." I think this is amazing. You mentioned that you've had a couple of resources. Tell us a bit where people can find you.

Christine H.: Then if we have some of our star players, like people who joined our mastermind, for example, we still have one [inaudible 00:50:47]. Well, I wouldn't ask for the ad. But obviously, they would have a budget, so they're going to make a ton of money then, how can they find out about you?

Meg Brunson: well, the number one resource I'd love to direct people to is, I have a quiz. I've taken a lot of pride in this little quiz because I consider it to be quite fun. I am a huge music fan and we are traveling full time, and we do a lot of dance parties on the car and whatnot. I have a quiz that will not only tell you what you can do to up-level your Facebook marketing right now. But it will assign you a theme song based on where you are, so that you can start planning a little dance party to rock out to it.

Meg Brunson: You might end up getting some journey or some [Pintrest 00:51:26] Taylor Swift or Usher, depending upon what your score is. You'll get a fun song to dance to. Plus, you're going to find out exactly what you need to do based on your business right now. That link is at megbrunson.com/quiz. I think, did I give you a URL?

Christine H.: Yeah, you did. It's going to be [crosstalk 00:51:47].

Kendra: -show notes for everyone to-

Meg Brunson: Okay.

Kendra: -your marketing on.

Meg Brunson: I just realized that, I'm sorry. Go ahead and use that link. Then you can also just go to megbrunson.com to just find more information about me. I'm on Facebook, obviously, Instagram, not as much on YouTube but I'm trying. If you are interested in my travel stuff too, it's @familyroadventures on Instagram. Because I know a lot of people just aren't interested by that whole lifestyle.

Christine H.: Perfect. Awesome. So you work with clients in terms of being a Facebook ads manager?

Meg Brunson: Yeah. I have some clients that I run their ads for them, they're hands-off and I just do all the work. I've got some clients who are in a mentorship program, so they want to learn the ropes. I think it's really important that everybody has a basic understanding of the ads before they outsource it. I've seen too many people working at Facebook especially, who are spending big bucks on agencies who do not have their best interests in mind.

Meg Brunson: I love for people to have at least that basic information. Even if we're not going to work together, I can just give you the information to make sure you're not getting screwed over. Then I have some clients who are taking, I have a course and I've got a variety of things for do-it-yourself. Who maybe aren't quite at that level of outsourcing or burning out or one-on-one mentor.

Kendra: Brilliant.

Christine H.: Well, definitely everyone should check that out because I know we have a lot of viewers or listeners, whatever, who are really interested in running Facebook ads and we don't want you to get screwed. Go, follow Meg and get her info so that you can [inaudible 00:53:28] up for success. Meg, we really, really appreciate you coming out with us today. That was really, really enlightening.

Christine H.: I think our audience members really appreciate it as we do. To everyone listening, thank you so much. We will see you again in one week for our business bomb series, where we'll give you a super juicy tip and then your head explodes because it's that fucking juicy. All right guys, take care and we'll talk to you in a week. Bye.

Welcome to the 360 Health Biz podcast's Biz Bomb where we give you a super quick actionable tip for your business.

Today's tip is all about taking a break. It's very important to take regular breaks because research shows that you really shouldn't be sitting or not moving your body for longer than about 60 minutes. So, moving your body at least every hour is way more important than sitting all day and then going and crushing it at the gym or CrossFit at the end of the day. Even when you have deadlines or you're really into a project, taking breaks is crucial to your physical and mental health.

That's where the Timeout app comes in! You can adjust the settings where it notifies you to take a break (Kendra has her set up to notify her ever hour for a two minute break). And it's not just a quick little notification that comes to the right side of your screen, it actually comes up and blocks your screen. You can always X out of it, but basically it prevents you from clicking or doing anything for about five seconds.

You could set it up to be every couple of hours for 15 minutes where you could have a quick walk, get a snack, take a bathroom break...however you want to utilize that time. The important thing is that you actually take the break(s)!

Even though you may be deep into a project and you just want to finish it, we guarantee you are going to be way more productive if you do this. If you take regular breaks it helps clear your head and detoxes some of that radiation or whatever it is that we are getting from the computer screen and it just makes you more effective.

Yo, guys, what's up? Kendra here for your weekly business tip. This is our Biz Bomb series, where we give you a super quick tip that helps you run your business and we try to keep it pretty actionable. Today, I want to quickly talk about an app I use to prevent myself from going into the dark computer hole. Okay.

So, I'm talking about the Time Out app. This is an app you can get in the Apple store. If you have a PC, I'm sure you can get it on that computer as well, or some version of it anyways. As you guys know, when you are working online on a computer, it's very easy to get locked into a project and then all this time passes and then suddenly you've been sitting on your computer for three hours and you feel like your brain is going to explode. I am definitely guilty of this. I love what I do so much and I can get super, super locked in on projects. And the result is that, yeah, I won't move my body for three hours and then I'll end up with a headache and I'll feel super zonked out. If I spend too much time in front of my computer, I feel a bit weird.

So, it's very important to me to take regular breaks and the research actually shows that you really shouldn't be sitting or not moving your body for longer than about 60 minutes and that is way more important. So, moving your body at least every hour is way more important than sitting all day and then going and crushing it at the gym or CrossFit at the end of the day. The research shows that that is not great for your life, for longevity, for your brain. It's not good. Okay. For me, I always need a reminder because, like I said, I get super locked in and I just want to stay in the computer hole and finish my project.

So, I use an app called Time Out. You can play with the settings and I have it set up that it reminds me to take a break every single hour. And the thing I like about it is it's not just a quick little notification that comes to the right side of your screen, it actually comes up and sort of blocks your screen. You can always X out of it, but basically it prevents you from clicking or doing anything for about five seconds. So, instead of having that automatic response to just exit out and ignore it and say, "Fuck off," basically it makes you think for a second and be like, "Okay, no, I actually need to do this. I need to take a break." You can press the button, Skip Break. You can delay it five or 10 minutes. You do have those options, but I try to be really on it and stay true to it and every hour I try to just take a break for two minutes. And again, you can set up your break.

So, I set mine up for five minutes, but you can set them up for one minute, two minutes, 10 minutes, whatever sort of jives with you. I just try to go and do something where I get some movement. So, I might do a lunge, I might do lunges around my house. Sometimes I go swing my kettlebell. Sometimes I'll just go walk around my house outside and just get some fresh air. Sometimes I will do squats. Sometimes I will skip. I have a little rebounder trampoline as well that I'll jump on for some amount of time or sometimes I just do inversions. So, I will get on my yoga mat and do a sort of quasi-headstand against the wall. I actually can't do a full headstand, but I get down so I'm on my forearms and my legs are actually up against the wall, I'm in a 90 degree angle, just to get the blood flowing into my brain.

And honestly guys, even though you're deep into a project and you're super locked in and you just want to finish it, I guarantee you are going to be way, way more productive if you do this and if you take regular breaks because it just clears the head and it kind of detoxes some of that radiation or whatever it is that we are getting from the computer screen and it just makes you more effective. On days where I just ignore my Time Out app all day or I forget to turn it on, you can actually set it up so that it starts when you open your computer, which I do now, but I just feel super fucking weird at the end of the day. I just feel tired. I feel unmotivated. I just feel like a sack of shit and I just want to sit on the couch and do nothing. But when I take my regular breaks, honestly guys, I feel so much more clear. I feel better at the end of the day and I just feel more productive and efficient overall.

So, this is really important because we're small-business owners, generally we're very passionate about what we do, and we can get locked in and totally forget to take a break to move our bodies. So, I do recommend this app. It's called the Time Out app. You can get it in the Apple store. On PC, I'm sure you can get it too. You can probably download it from Google or if not, I am sure there's some sort of comparable option, but I think this is really important. We do want to not spend all our time staring at our computer. We do want to take a break, give our eyes a break, give our brain a break, and remember to move our body and get that blood flowing.

All right, guys. I hope that was helpful. I am Kendra Perry, if you have forgotten already. And guys, if you're watching this on IGTV, we do these episodes every week on IGTV, so you can connect with me, leave me a comment, let me know. Let me know if you use some sort of other app or let me know if you're guilty for just getting locked in and not paying attention to getting breaks. And if you are on your smart phone, you're listening to the podcast, just take a quick screenshot of this episode, share it to your Instagram stories, mention @360healthbizpodcast, and just let us know what you learned and what your biggest takeaway was for this episode. All right, guys. I will see you in one week when we have a full episode with both me and my business bestie, Christine.

Linkedin isn’t just for finding a job and post your resume. As Scott Aaron shares in our newest episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast, Linkedin is a place to build human connection. Whaaat? How can you build human connection over the computer?

As we have shouted from the rooftops in many episodes – you have to engage with people on any of the platforms you are using. You can’t expect to post an Instagram picture and get clients. You can’t write one article and expect to make 6 figures from it. The same goes from Linkedin – if you know how to use it (which Scott provides some key tips in this episode on how to do that) you can build a network of your ideal client and grow your network of badass health coaches.

If you’re intimiated by Linkedin, like Christine was (before this episode!) - fear not. Scott has some simple yet impact tips to create an amazing profile and connect with likeminded folks. In this episode we discuss:

- 3 things every health coach needs to do in their business (and how Linkedin helps with that)- Linkedin content and the magic formula (hello Linkedin video!)- 4 key tips to succeeding on LinkedIn- statistics on Linkedin in comparison to Facebook & Instagram- the dreadful Linkedin automated message & how to make it more authentic

As a best selling author and speaker, Scott is passionate about helping fellow entrepreneurs achieve success while building their own network organically and without complicated and costly marketing tactics. His program has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and individuals experience explosive growth following his program Linkedin Accelerator. People-focused and result driven, Scott's strategic approach to teaching others how to create wealth online and organic traffic is the game changer when it comes to competing in a saturated digital world.

Get Scott’s freebie, How to Optimize Your Linkedin Profile: https://networkacademy.kartra.com/page/OptimizeLinkedin

Connect with us on social:instagram.com/360healthbizpodcast facebook.com/360healthbizpodcast@kendraperryinc@sleeplikeaboss_

TRANSCRIPTS

Christine H.: Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this brand new episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. We are so excited to be talking to you, and today, there's three of us. So, we have the as always adorable, super sexy and fun, and super smart, Kendra Perry, who's here like whoa! Check out YouTube, it was her winning pose, for the win.

Christine H.: Then we have an amazing guest today who is going to talk about a topic that I'm just nuts about. So we're going to talk more about that in a second. Suspense, if you're on watching video, which you should because we have [inaudible 00:00:37]. And then you've got humble me, myself, Christine Hansen, and we are going to really blow your mind this week as we always do.

Christine H.: But before we're going to start off, we want to say a super, super huge thank you, because we've got a review and you know when that happens, our aura lights up with love and fabulous glowness. So, Kendra, what have we been told this week and this is like just a massage for my soul really. So-

Kendra Perry: Yeah, this is a massage for my ego for sure. So we have a five-star review from Chasing Vitality from the UK. So thank you to all our international listeners. The title is Great Business Podcast. "Love these two, down to earth, actionable great content. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. It's helping me loads."

Kendra Perry: So we're so glad it is helping you Chasing Vitality. And now, we give you a virtual hug for the five-star review.

Christine H.: Kendra is a huge hugger. I'm like, "Yay, this is great!"

Kendra Perry: I know. I hug everyone.

Christine H.: I know. And I was just like, "Whoa!" Maybe that's my European thing. I don't know.

Kendra Perry: Maybe.

Christine H.: But anyway, let me introduce our guest today, and you should switch on your audio. We don't have a lot of men on our podcast so please do tune in.

Kendra Perry: It's exciting.

Christine H.: Very exciting. So as a best-selling author and speaker, Scott is passionate about how big fellow entrepreneurs achieve success, which we always like obviously. Why building their own network organically ... Oh, like that. Does that mean free? We have to check out, and without complicated and costly marketing tactics. I do like the sound of that too.

Christine H.: His program has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and individual experienced explosive growth following his program LinkedIn Accelerator. I have to say I'm getting a bit turn on with this. People-focused and result-driven, Scott's strategic approach to teaching others how to create wealth online and organic traffic is the game changer when it comes to competing in this saturated digital world.

Christine H.: Whoa, promising much? Okay. We're going to milk you like there's no tomorrow. All right, so Kendra and I are both like linked in with one of the topics that we really want you to talk about, so Kendra has her own YouTube and Instagram with knowledge and I dab a little bit in everything. I did really dived into LinkedIn a year ago, and I have to say that it was very lucrative in terms of being very focused knowing what you want and I have to say maybe the most surprising aspect for me that was people are actually friendly.

Christine H.: I don't know, I was so intimidated by LinkedIn. For me, LinkedIn was just kind of a room of suits and assholes really that I didn't really want to have anything to do with, and getting to know the people and just diving in there a little bit, people were really, really open and friendly and helpful and yeah, I also find it's a little bit clicky.

Christine H.: So there's lots of things that I want to dive into, but Scott, first of all, tell us a little bit how you actually got into this social media platform. Was it by accident? Was it very strategic? Tell us a little bit about this.

Scott Aaron: So, it was ... Well, first of all, thank you guys for having me on here. It's an honor and a pleasure. So going back to what you said earlier, yes, you can milk me for whatever you want and we can go as deep as you need to.

Christine H.: Let's not take this out of context, people.

Scott Aaron: Yes, I might. I was doing a keynote a couple of weeks ago, and I said something along the lines of that. Someone said, that's what she said. And I completely set myself up for that. Anyway, enough with the Michael Scott quotes. So everything that has happened with my speaking, with my best-selling book and everything with LinkedIn was completely by accident, but obviously on purpose.

Scott Aaron: So before we kind of dive into that, people need to know exactly how I got to where I am today and it actually transpired from something that happened to me 22 years ago. And I talked about these brain tattoo moments that we have in our life and I'm going to give you the very short version of this because I do 60-minute keynotes on just my story.

Scott Aaron: But basically, the long and the short of it is when I was 18 years old, I'm a fourth generation entrepreneur. My father owned a couple of businesses and he had left his one business to work for someone else and that ended up being one of the worst decisions that he ever made because he got actually caught up in a $9.5 million dollar insurance fraud case which landed him in federal prison for two and a half years.

Scott Aaron: And this was my introduction to entrepreneurship because in the process of him getting sentenced and going away to prison, he had bought a failing fitness club in downtown Philadelphia that was turned over to me when I was 19. So I was-

Kendra Perry: Great gift.

Scott Aaron: Yes, here. Here it is. So that was my introduction into entrepreneurship but I was always a people person and this is back in 1998 before really the internet was what it is today. There was no social media so everything was grass-roots connecting with other people. And I became a certified sports nutritionist, personal trainer, group fitness instructor.

Scott Aaron: So everything that I did in the fitness industry was revolved around helping people and getting people results. So the one gym turned into two gyms when my father came back and we ended up selling both of them in 2003 for a million dollars. So I became a millionaire at 24. In 2004, we opened up our third and final gym which ended up getting put into my name because my parents' credit was bottomed out, so everything had to get financed by me, which I didn't really know what that meant at 25 years old.

Scott Aaron: But two and a half years later, in around 2007, 2008, I found myself in $1.5 million of liability debt. So I had another hole to crawl out of. I grew a very successful personal training practice and then between 2008 and 2014, I was married and divorced twice. And so that was a big change for me because I really had to learn emotional maturity, but I was beating myself up a lot. But it also left me with one of the greatest gifts which is my now seven-year-old beautiful little boy Taylor. So becoming a dad was one of the greatest accomplishments that I've ever accomplished.

Scott Aaron: In 2013, a year before my second divorce, I found network marketing and I'm sure some of the listeners on here know about it. And I've always been psychologically unemployable from day one so I never had [crosstalk 00:07:49] I've never worked for anyone. So I didn't think this was a pyramid or a Ponzi but I'm always networking. I'm always making recommendations. I was sending people to vitamin shop and GNC and all of these places and I said, "Fuck this." I'm like, "Instead of sending them there, I could be the one supplying them what they need."

Scott Aaron: So I grew this business within two years to match my income as a personal trainer. And after I exited my second marriage, I had to reinvent myself again but in 2015, I made a pivot. I basically found out two things. Number one, I found out through selling a property that I owned in downtown Philadelphia that my house that I sold was being used as collateral for the gym's equipment.

Scott Aaron: So when I went to go sell the property, there was about $35,000 worth of equity. Instead of getting 35K, I got $837 because the balance of the lease would take off by my house. So then I had to have a conversation with my father. I sat him in my office and I said, "Listen, this partnership is not working anymore. I'm going to be taking over this gym myself. You're going to have to go find somewhere else to train," and I can tell you that that was probably the best decision for both of us. And if he was on here with me, he would say the same thing because it allowed us to get back to father and son again.

Scott Aaron: We were never meant to be business partners. We were always meant to be father and son. He's an amazing father, an amazing grandfather and me going on this road myself was the best decision. There was one last thing that happened and it kind of curtailed into LinkedIn. So I was looking through some paperwork because now I was suspicious, and I found one document that changed everything. And this was the document for the lease of my gym.

Scott Aaron: And it said, "Guarantor," and it had my signature above it. And for those that don't know what that means, if you're the guarantor of the lease and that business goes under, if you violate the lease, any money that is owed was going to get turned over to me personally, which at that point was around $450,000. And I was at my wit's end. That was kind of like the cherry on top.

Scott Aaron: So, around the same time, I saw social media changed. I saw Facebook and Instagram going down these rabbit holes and people now had to pay a shit ton of money for Facebook ads. All I saw was sports bras and yoga pants on Instagram. Everybody was just selling their stuff and their bodies and pretty selfies and all of these stuff that I'm like, "This is removing me from my core foundation which is connecting with human beings."

Scott Aaron: So I jumped on to LinkedIn, had no clue how to use it. I had a profile but that was about it, but I remember something that my first mentor said to me. And she said to me, she goes, "You have to wake up each day, look yourself in the mirror and you need to ask yourself, how am I going to connect with me today?"

Scott Aaron: And it clicked. And I said, "That's it. If I'm going to be on a business platform, I need to look for the business mirror image of myself," which at that time was a personal trainer, sports nutritionist and gym owner. So I started building this network of people that were just like me and I started setting up phone call after phone call and I was closing people into my businesses and I was making money. And I said, "Shit, I think I had something here."

Scott Aaron: So I reached out to a friend of mine who was also an entrepreneur and I said, "Joey, listen. You got to get on LinkedIn." And I said, "Here, I want you to do these few things," that I knew at that time because it was still new to me four years ago, and I said, "Text me in a week and let me know what happens." A week later, he texted me. He said, "Call me." I did, I said, "What's up?" And he goes, "Dude, whatever you're doing, it really works." He goes, "I have 14 appointments booked this week."

Scott Aaron: And the cure all to feeling stuck is being in action and for any entrepreneur, any business owner, if there's nothing written down in your appointment book, it's the scariest place that you can be and most people that I was speaking to didn't have enough people talking to.

Scott Aaron: So anyway, I went on a podcast about four years ago, and it was a live dial podcast. So it was a live show where people could call in but it was also recorded. And I was going over the statistics of LinkedIn. I always tell people facts are friendly. It was what my mom says to me until to this day. And I was just reporting the facts.

Christine H.: I'm a huge denial person, so but yeah like [inaudible 00:12:27].

Scott Aaron: That's okay. I hopped off this call. I hopped onto Facebook, and I had nine inboxes from people wanting to hire me. For what I didn't know, I didn't have anything that they could pay for. But they wanted to learn how to use LinkedIn, so I got into action. I created some videos, created a website and I started my coaching practice on what worked for me now teaching others.

Scott Aaron: So at the same time, I was sitting in my attorney's office and I was going over what I needed to do at this gym because I was losing about $3,000 a month. I had now a coaching practice that was on the rise. I had the successful network marketing business. I was just at my wit's end and I had this monkey sitting on my back and it was this gym. It was my father's dream, not mine.

Scott Aaron: So I was sitting with him and he said, "Listen, you got two choices. You can continue to have your two businesses, fund your business that is failing or you can file for personal bankruptcy." And I was like, "Okay." And I remember sitting there and I remember thinking to myself, I wasn't feeling and thinking my life is over. I was thinking, "Holy shit, my life is about to begin. This is my opportunity to wipe the slate clean and really start doing what I wanted to do."

Scott Aaron: So he said, "On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being slam dunk, you got to do this. 0 being do not do this, keep going." He goes, "You're a 9.5." So on July 1st of 2016 just about three and a half years ago, I filed for personal bankruptcy. On July 31st, I closed my gym. I wrote a handwritten letter to my members, stuck it on the door, turned off the lights, locked the door and I never came back."

Scott Aaron: So on August 1st of 2016, I shared with people that that is when I was truly reborn and I'm living life on my own terms now and my life has never been the same. And it's because I never thought that it was going to be easy because those that take the easy road live a hard life but those that take the hard road will live an easy life.

Scott Aaron: And I remember someone asking me, they said, "What is your super power?" And I said, "It's resiliency." No matter what shit has been thrown my way, I have always figured out a way, not around it, through it so I can learn from that and become even better on the other side. And what I realized with LinkedIn, it was the perfect place for me because I'm all about human connection. I'm all about connecting with other people because I don't care what opt-ins you have. I don't care what lead magnets or funnels that you have or email sequence. Here's the deal.

Scott Aaron: There's one aspect of life and business that you can't automate and that's human connection, and that's what I'm best at. So if you're looking to connect with people and sell them, you have to build that know, like and trust factor first before you even get the right to try to offer someone a product or a service that you have for them. And that's what I'm best at and that's what I teach now building that network, building that relationship and that trust and the connection between two people where you can solve a problem or a need that they are in need or wanting.

Scott Aaron: And it's a very simple system. It's the best platform honestly. If people are still blind to it, if you are still trying to convince yourself that Facebook and Instagram are going to turn back the hands of time and work like the way that they did in 2013 to 2015, you're taking crazy pills. It's time to get with the times, not reinvent yourself but add something to your arsenal of information and tools.

Scott Aaron: You have to be a general contractor of social media. You have to have multiple tools in your tool belt and if LinkedIn is not one of them, you are leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table that you could be collecting.

Kendra Perry: Oh, my good. I love this so much, because you're like preaching to the choir. I mean I talked about this all the time. I think like it's this connection. People are like, "Well, I need to run ads to my course." And I'm like, "Well, that's not going to sell. People need to get to know you first." I mean, I talked about this so much and I love that this conversation is going here because I didn't expect it.

Kendra Perry: I mean, it's true. Facebook is barely a platform you can connect with people on unless you're doing groups. Instagram, you can still do it on it, but you need to be doing stories. You need to be doing lives. You need to be connecting that way, but I haven't really thought about LinkedIn as a connection platform although I actually do use it to connect. So can you tell us a little bit more about like why, like convince health coaches because our audience, they're solopreneurs, they're health coaches, why should they get on LinkedIn?

Christine H.: Especially I think because it's so intimidating, I guess.

Kendra Perry: It is intimidating.

Christine H.: Because I think a lot of people ... It's not actually once you're there. But I think a lot of people perceived it as a corporate platform, and it's the way it markets itself.

Scott Aaron: Let me say this. It's only intimidating because you don't know how to use it.

Kendra Perry: I agree. I totally agree.

Scott Aaron: So, Christine, you can ask anyone, Facebook was intimidating to all of us when we first started using it. Instagram was intimidating to all of us when we first started using it but I tell people all the time what was once uncomfortable becomes comfortable when you start utilizing it.

Scott Aaron: So it's only an unknown and it's only uncomfortable for people that just aren't taking the time to get to know it. Now, Kendra, back to your original question, I don't try to convince anyone. So I don't convince anyone they should use LinkedIn. I know they should be using LinkedIn. So this is the know, it's not the convince and here's why.

Scott Aaron: There's three things that every single coach, I don't care if you're a health coach, a business coach, whatever it is. There are three things that you need to look at. Number one, demographics. You need to know where your people are hanging out, the age of the people that you're looking to connect with. Number two, the size of the networking that you can grow. Gary Vaynerchuk says it best. He says, "Your network is a direct correlation to your net worth."

Kendra Perry: I love it.

Scott Aaron: So if you have a small network, you have small net worth. If you have a large network, you have a large net worth. And number three is the money mindset of the people that are hanging on that platform. People with broke thoughts will not invest in something that you offer.

Scott Aaron: So when you combine those three aspects and you look at the demographics of Instagram and Facebook which are the same because Zuckerberg owns them both and you look at the demographics of LinkedIn which is owned by Microsoft, which is a technology and cybersecurity company, it's clear as day.

Scott Aaron: So the most recent statistics have showed that the average age combined with Facebook and Instagram is 18 to 29 years old. So it's more of the millennials. LinkedIn is 30 to 55 years old. So depending upon where your target market is, if it's busy moms, corporate people, wherever it is, you're going to know where they're hanging out now.

Scott Aaron: Now the size of the network is really key. Facebook you're only allowed 5,000 "friends" and basically the follow feature kicks in or you start a business page and basically you're paying for people I don't believe paying for friends or paying for anything. I don't pay for connection. People are out there. You should connect with them on an organic basis.

Scott Aaron: Instagram, even though you can grow a ridiculous network has the highest rate of fake accounts to real accounts across social media. Actually, there was a recent study that was done that Instagram is closing close to 2 million accounts every 30 days that are fake accounts. So that's also something that people need to know. On LinkedIn, you're allowed 30,000 organic, unpaid, free connections.

Scott Aaron: In three and a half years, I grew my network from 500 to nearly 27,000 in three and a half years organically. So when you have the ability to curate and create a network that is the mirror image of you, the ideal customer, the ideal client, the ideal avatar, you don't have to sell to them because now you're building relationship and rapport with people that you have commonalities with, so natural progression is the know, like and trust factor takes place. You'll be closing more sales.

Scott Aaron: But also, it's money mindset. The average income of those that spend time on Facebook and Instagram is $30,000 a year or less, which means they're just getting by. The average income of someone on LinkedIn is $100,000 a year or more. So that's also something very, very important to take into consideration, three and a half times more. But here's the other thing, I have a global coaching practice. I have clients in over 12 countries, but I wasn't able to grow my coaching practice to where it is now if it wasn't for LinkedIn because it's the only social media platform that you can search and connect for your ideal customer or client by city, by state, by country, by province.

Scott Aaron: Anywhere in the world, if there's something that's ideal for you. You go into the search bar and you can search and connect with those individuals. So when I talk about a game-changing platform that you don't have to spend any dollar off, I don't pay for premium. I don't pay for sales navigator. I don't pay for recruiter. I don't pay for human connection. I create human connection and that's what everyone can be doing on LinkedIn.

Kendra Perry: Very cool. And so I love that. You've definitely given me a few things to think about. And I'm just wondering if we can go back to kind of the basics here's for those of our listeners who are totally unfamiliar with LinkedIn or what that actually looks like, what types of content are people posting there, is there a fee, like is there direct messaging, can you go live. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Scott Aaron: I'll handle those one at a time because I have an answer for all of those. And I-

Kendra Perry: I expected that.

Scott Aaron: And I like questions because questions lead to answers and that's something big on LinkedIn. You always, no matter what you're doing on there. So to work backwards as far as your content question, LinkedIn Live is in the beta test phase right now. You can apply to be on it. I filled out an application already, so I'm on the wait list. And basically, they're allowing certain people to beta test it, so it hasn't gone global yet.

Scott Aaron: Now, there is LinkedIn video. You can record yourself on a Zoom, upload a video to the platform up to 10 minutes long. Or you can just use the mobile device. I always do. The great thing about LinkedIn is that there is a repurposing factor. So basically, I use my phone to record my LinkedIn videos, which automatically saves to my camera roll, which I then have that video message, which I can upload onto my IGTV or I can also upload onto my regular Instagram feed as a video, which is great because now I'm working smarter, not harder.

Scott Aaron: The idea with LinkedIn is to produce one piece of content a day. There is no story feature. You don't have to post 18,000 times a day like Facebook. It's one piece of content a day and it comes in three forms, either a post, a video or an article. And all can be done from the PC. Posts and videos are also accessible from the mobile device. You cannot do articles from the mobile device but the content that people are looking for on LinkedIn right now are how-to's, tips, motivation and inspiration. No selling, no offering, no product pictures or before and after's or whatever shit you're selling. You have to sell less and you have to connect more.

Scott Aaron: Now, the magic formula for a good piece of content on LinkedIn, three things. Number one, four to six lines of your own content that relate to what you're either speaking on in a video or posting about in a quote title. Number two is hashtags. Much like Instagram, LinkedIn now has a hashtag feature that people can follow hashtags and you are actually notified if you get enough engagement, you will have a trending hashtag on LinkedIn. I have a trending post at least once a week at this point and that allows people to find you easier much like you would use on Instagram.

Scott Aaron: And the third part is a call to action. So you want to hear from your audience. You don't just want to just put some shit out there and say, "I hope they engage." Ask them to engage. What are your thoughts on this video? What are your thoughts on this content? What are your thoughts on how fear paralyzes you? Leave your comment below. So, engage with them. You want to hear from them. You want to provide information, get feedback. Use that feedback for more content to come later. So, one piece of content, that's the basic thing.

Scott Aaron: Now, as far as LinkedIn goes, there's four key aspects to it. Number one is your profile. So, Microsoft embedded search engine optimization on your profile. If you want to become more visible, you have to have your profile filled out from top to bottom. If someone wants to go to my website, this is not a plug, scottaaron.net, I had a free infographic tab that you can click on and basically, it shows you the layout of how to optimize your profile so you are more seen and I've had clients actually change their profile and people now use this search engine on LinkedIn like they would Google or like they would Yahoo. They're searching for business coaches.

Scott Aaron: So if you don't have business coach listed on your profile, how the hell were people supposed to find you? So number one is making sure that your profile is filled out from top to bottom.

Scott Aaron: Number two is actually searching and connecting for your avatar. So you need to define who that person is. What industry are they a part of? What is their job title? How much money do they make? What is their profession? So searching and connecting for those individuals.

Scott Aaron: Now, to go a little bit deeper with that when you send connections to LinkedIn, LinkedIn will ask you, "Do you want to send a note? People are more likely to accept if you add a note to this connection." It's bullshit. There was a third party that did a study and they sent a hundred connections with a message and without. The connection rate was exactly the same. Work smarter, not harder to send the connections.

Scott Aaron: Now, the third piece is messaging. And this is where people get really lost. I mean, Christine, you said you spent some time on there. Kendra, I don't know if you have yet but if you start, people send you these shitty, wonkolog messages-

Kendra Perry: Oh, I've got them.

Scott Aaron: Literally, I showed my fiancé the other day. I said, "Nancy, you got to look at this message." And I was scrolling and it literally took me three minutes to scroll through the whole message. This guy sent me 17 paragraphs of verbal vomit that I was not going to read.

Kendra Perry: I've got very interesting marriage proposals. I could be a princess in Saudi Arabia by now.

Scott Aaron: Listen, everything is possible. You never know. I break it down like this. There's three key formulas to a very, very good messaging. It's all about genuine authenticity and not selling. So number one, state the person's name. "Hey, Kendra, great to connect with you." That's it, that's number one.

Scott Aaron: Number two, in the body of the message, state why you're connecting with them without asking for shit, without trying to sell them anything. "I saw that we have a shared background in health and wellness, would love to hear more about it and share a little bit about what I do." There's your body.

Scott Aaron: Then you finish with a CTA, a call to action. So I'm all about call to actions because questions lead to answers. You have to A-S-K to G-E-T. You have to ask to get. So, I would then say, "Do you have any time this week or next week to hop on a call to learn how we can best support each other here on LinkedIn?" State their name, reason for reaching out and then a call to action.

Scott Aaron: And then fourth aspect is just what I went over, content. When you curate the right network, so if you know who your target market is, you start connecting with those individuals and then you start posting on a consistent basis once a day the three ways that I already mentioned, now, you're speaking directly to that network. It is waiting for your content and they are just gobbling it up.

Scott Aaron: So everything that I put out on LinkedIn is speaking to the end user in mind. The mistake that a lot of people make is they post shit that they want to post. But when you start thinking about what does my end user want to know. If I was my end user, what would I respond to most? What would I engage with? What would I would want to give feedback on?

Scott Aaron: So if you post with the end user in mind, you will have the greatest amount of organic engagement you could ever imagine and right now, as you guys are listening to this podcast or watching this podcast, LinkedIn is going through a Facebook 2012 moment. Right now, engagement has never been higher and organic reach is the highest on any social media platform that is out there today. And if you follow those four core principles without doing anything with me, you will start to see results.

Kendra Perry: All right, we need to get the podcast on LinkedIn, Christine.

Christine H.: Yeah. I also want to say it's all true but don't underestimate the work though because I find just posting is not enough and that's something where I lost track at some point. You have to engage with people too, like it's really ... I find people are very open to help. It's very easy to ask for help and I had super success in speaking and getting speaking gigs and all kinds of connection really quick. People don't bullshit around. They don't have time, it's like [inaudible 00:31:50].

Christine H.: But I also find that you can easily get lost because there's also lot of "you need to connect with these people", "you have to show that you engage" and all that types. So calculate that in because it's really ... Yes, you can take but it's really also that giving thing. And that's where I go a little bit, not pissed off, but it's just like a lost attention because I found at the time and I think it has changed again. That was a year ago. You had all these pods going nuts.

Christine H.: And I think LinkedIn has cracked down on them when they realized it but you have basically people in a group conversation and they weren't giving the links and you have to go to their links and share and like and comment so that engagement would go up even if a lot of it was crap. I didn't even want to engage with it. So that was something that just I didn't want to do.

Christine H.: And then the other thing is that I really found that it's a little bit like high school after all. You have a couple of really huge badass influences, maybe the one kind of wants to be their friend in a way. So for me, it was really unsexy at some point where I was like, I know that it works and I know that if I have the goal, I know how to get there, not like just too directly.

Christine H.: But at the same time, it was exhausting to me at some point and so I just like, "I'm still on there. I'm posting regular content, videos with caps. You should always add caps because people don't watch it with sound because they are not supposed to when they are in the office or wherever, so always add caps.

Christine H.: But that was going on like a year ago. So honestly, I just dropped the ball. I know I just like I still post on there and I'm still on there, have a couple of really good connections there. But I'm wondering on what your thought of them is, because I know for a long time it was like, okay, per day you post content. You have to comment on, five. You have to like on four, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. And I was just like, "I don't have time for this," but at the same time, it's well spent. It's definitely better spent than on other platforms. But give me a little bit of your intake on how things have evolved maybe since then.

Scott Aaron: I mean the pods are on every single social media platform. I think that's bullshit. I think that's forced engagement. I don't believe in forced engagement. I believe in organic engagement. And I will like and comment on someone else's stuff if I like it. I'm not going to do things because I have to. I'm going to engage with someone's content because I'm like, "Shit, that's a really good post." And I'll write great posts.

Scott Aaron: So, everything I do is organic. There's two things that I want to say. Number one, and Christine, are you in the UK?

Christine H.: No, I'm in Luxembourg, Europe.

Scott Aaron: Okay. So, Kendra may understand this but I'll explain it again. You have to treat LinkedIn like a 401(k). So, here in the States, a 401(k) is a retirement fund or an IRA. So, it's a retirement vehicle. What most people get lost in is having LinkedIn like a lottery ticket. I tell people if you want to do something easy, go down to the local gas station or minimart and get a lottery scratch-off ticket because you have a better shot that way.

Scott Aaron: LinkedIn is a retirement vehicle. It's compounded interest over time. You have to make daily deposits to create a compounded interest of income that eventually after enough time goes on that you create the wealth that you truly deserve. It's about doing things without expecting anything in return, leaving people better but being uber-consistent because consistency creates the compounded effect that creates everything that you want in your life. That's number one.

Scott Aaron: Number two, if there's two books that I can recommend every single human being on this planet to read, number one is a book called Go for No. it's a book by Andrea Waltz and Richard Fenton. Andrea has become a friend of mine. I read this book four years ago and it blew my mind. And the basic principle of the book is yes is the destination but no is how you get there and that's all I'm going to say about it. I can do a whole podcast just on that book. It's 70 pages. It will change your life.

Scott Aaron: Number two is the foundational money mindset book, the first money mindset book ever written in 1910 and it's called The Science of Getting Rich. This book was written in 1910 by Wallace D. Wattles. And this book spurred all the other books that you guys are reading: You're a Badass at Making Money, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Secret, The Strangest Secret, Think and Grow Rich.

Scott Aaron: Every single one of those money mindset books is off of the teachings of The Science of Getting Rich and it teaches you this: When you live in a world of collaboration and creation and instead of a world of competition and comparison, you can create anything you want in life.

Scott Aaron: And if you harness those two principles and you harness the fact that this is a retirement vehicle, this is compounded interest, it's making those daily, weekly, monthly, yearly deposits and not getting attached to the outcome, doing things without an expectation or results, you will create and live the best life possible.

Christine H.: Okay. Kendra and I were just like, "Sure."

Kendra Perry: Like, "Oh, yes."

Christine H.: Very, very true. All right, so I think this has been really good in terms of we know why LinkedIn has to be on your list no matter what kind of business you have. We talked about the content. We talked about how to approach people. We talked about engagement. So, as I saw it in your bio, you are actually teaching this in more detail to your clients. So walk us quickly through how people can get in touch with you, why they should get in touch with you so that when they are like, "Okay, I really need to get my shit together and this needs to be in my arsenal," how do they do that?

Scott Aaron: Great question and thank you for the opportunity to share this. There's no have-to's but if people are unhappy with the amount of conversations they're not having, and if you don't have enough ... I don't care what kind of coaching practice you have whether it's wellness or business, leads are your lifeline. People are your lifeline. So if you're going to depend on the market that you have now and you're going to depend on your friends and family to grow your business, you're just wrong.

Scott Aaron: And the fact is, is that if you're not consistently growing your network organically, you're not going to have a business in two to three years and I said this on one of my podcast episode. It's called network marketing made simple. If people go all in on Facebook and Instagram and you don't utilize other resources not just an email list or LinkedIn. Instagram and Facebook will eventually bankrupt your business because it's not going to produce the amount of connections required and conversations required to succeed.

Scott Aaron: So people can go to my website, www.scottaaron.net. That's where you can order my bestselling book, the LinkedIn book for network marketing. You can also listen to my podcast, Network Marketing Made Simple. Or you can connect with me on LinkedIn, it's scottaaron. Instagram, it's @scottaaronlinkedin. And on Facebook, it's also Scott Aaron. I do Facebook Lives two to three times a week. I do three trainings on all social media because I believe you have to give before you can get. It's just the law of reciprocation.

Scott Aaron: I try to give as much as I can for free before even people walk through the door to want to do more with me. So I have a ton of free resources, the infographic, everything else, my podcast. Just digest it all. You're going to resonate with something.

Christine H.: Perfect.

Kendra Perry: I love that. It's such a powerful message that goes beyond just LinkedIn. And I feel like I'm like beating a dead horse with this message because I've talked to a lot of health coaches the past couple of weeks because we're launching a year-long business coaching program. And it's just crazy like what these people have been told to do. They've spent like six months building out a course and their strategy is to run Facebook ads to it but they don't have a social media following.

Scott Aaron: [crosstalk 00:44:42] Who are you selling?

Kendra Perry: Like it hurts me.

Scott Aaron: People pay all this shit and then they have no one to sell it to. I had friends of mine that were building ... They were doing a launch for a big online mastermind and I'm like, "How did things go?" And they're like, "No one bought." You have to have-

Christine H.: We've all been there but it's painful because these are people who've been in business for a couple of years and it's exactly the scenario that you said before. People are unhappy about the nonexistent amount of leads that you're having because they've been working their asses off. They've been reinvesting. They are believing. They are doing gratitude work, whatever, polishing their crystals which I do too. I love this. But at the same time, it's like why is it not working and it's because there's essence that's just missing. It's just like-

Scott Aaron: They're selling too much and they're connecting too little. And when you change nothing, nothing changes. It's plain and simple. You guys know what the definition of insanity is, which is doing the same thing each and every day expecting something different to happen. If you're not going to change something, you can't expect anything to change in your life.

Kendra Perry: Yeah. I mean I've built my whole business on connection and like I don't have a big following but it doesn't matter because the people who invest in you, they actually align with your message. They align with your mission and they will buy everything that you put out there. I've had people moved who were in my health coaching membership when I was doing health coaching. Now they did my course. They're in my membership and they wanted to do business coaching with me and now they're in our mastermind. They're just like, "What are you selling? I want it," like they don't even care.

Christine H.: Yeah, it's very true.

Scott Aaron: It's the know, like and trust. When people know you, they like you and they trust you and they will buy anything that you put out there because they've already seen the result from something before. You have to take the time to really nurture those relationships. Make them very meaningful because here's the other thing, people don't realize this why connection is so important because those raving fans, those raving customers, those raving clients, do you know whose name is going to come first out of that person's mouth? Your words.

Scott Aaron: You have these people organically telling other people about you. I can't tell you how many people reached out to me because of the lives that I have impacted with my coaching. So now, I have people coming to me saying, "I want to work with you. A friend of so and so told me to reach out to you. I want the results that they had." So now, you've built that trust and rapport with those people, they're going to start doing the work for you because they want to, because you've changed their life.

Kendra Perry: Yes, love it, so, so good. Well, thank you so much, Scott. That was a very cool conversation and I actually feel a bit more inspired about LinkedIn. I've been on LinkedIn for a little while. I have a strategy. I tried to reach out via direct message and like have ... I literally just tried to start a conversation.

Kendra Perry: But it's funny, you can sniff out people's intentions from a mile away and when I started conversation with someone, I can instantly tell, "Oh, they're about to try to sell me something," and I fucking hate it. And because I'm on there, I just want to get to know them. I just want to have a conversation, get to know them and see where it goes. But it's like people come on too fast. They come on too strong and there's a lot of spammy people on LinkedIn so it's too bad but don't be a spammer, be a human connection builder.

Scott Aaron: Yes, 100%. Two things that I can leave you with is that your failures always open the doors to your successes. The more often you fail, the more often you're going to learn how to succeed, so you have to have that very high failure rate to get the high success rate. And the last thing is that there's millions of ways of how to succeed and there's only one way to fail and that's to quit.

Scott Aaron: So for anyone that's listening to this and you're thinking of quitting, basically, that's the only way you're going to fail. So no matter how hard it gets, no matter how many ups and downs, bumps in the roads, potholes, speed bumps that you have to go over, as long as you grow through it and learn from it, you will eventually succeed. It's just when the time is right for you.

Kendra Perry: Love it. It touches my soul.

Christine H.: All right, party people. Well, we're always so happy that you tuned in. and if you learned something from this and I'm pretty sure you did, then please go over to iTunes and leave us a five-star review, showing us lots of love, we would adore it. And Scott would adore it. He would be really happy too.

Christine H.: And don't forget to check out whatever is happening in our news, so we're launching our mastermind at this time when you're listening to this live. But even if it's later, to keep in touch with us, we always have goodness coming your way. And I think that's it for this week, so we'll talk to you next week with a Biz Bomb episode. Bye.

Struggling to market and build your health coaching business? Tune in with online business experts, Kendra Perry and Christine Hansen, to bust the top 5 BULLSHIT BUSINESS MYTHS that business gurus are preaching to the masses.

Connect with us on social:instagram.com/360healthbizpodcastfacebook.com/360healthbizpodcast

@kendraperryinc@sleeplikeaboss_

TRANSCRIPTS

Kendra: Yo. What's up. Hello, YouTube Live friends. This is actually our first time going live on YouTube, so we have no idea if this is working, but it looks like it is. I can actually see us on YouTube, so that's good.

Christine: It's exciting.

Kendra: It looks like we've got a few people on right now, so hopefully, you guys can hear us, hopefully you guys can see us, and hopefully, you guys are super excited to learn about the five top online business myths that are basically keeping you broke and preventing you from getting your message out to the world, and that's what we're going to be talking about today. You guys might have caught us on Instagram last week, but we wanted to do this on YouTube again just to, I don't know, test it out, try something different. Be innovative, right?

Christine: Sure, sure. And keep it, because we didn't record it last time because we're Muppets, and we didn't toggle the correct tap, so here's your first glance at toggle the tap to save the video. So yeah, that's why we're doing it too.

Kendra: Yeah, we fucked that up, but that's okay. That's why we're here, and this is definitely being recorded, so we're all good with that, and yeah. So what kind of inspired us to do this video, is actually the fact that we've been talking to a lot of health coaches lately, as we enroll some people into our 360 Mastermind, which is our year-long business coaching program for health coaches, and we still do actually have one spot open, but that's not what this video is about. We're going to tell you more about that later, but definitely contact us if you're interested.

But what sort of inspired this, is all the kind of enrollment calls we've been having, and just hearing everything people have been told that they need to do to grow their business and market their business, and a lot of it, there's some good stuff in there, but there was a lot of bad stuff.

Christine: Yes.

Kendra: A lot of bad stuff.

Christine: And we can just say bad, because usually, we're very much, it's not all black and white, but boy, yeah. Hell yeah, there's clearly bad, bad, bad advice there. When Kendra reported back to me, which you heard, I was just like, mind blown. How is this still happening in Internet land? This was 2000, basically, it was like eons ago. So do everyone a favor out there, especially those you know, who are a little bit more new in the online space and who want to take place in, have your seat at the table on the online business work, which is totally lucrative and can totally work. I think this is just to really help you save tons of money and just make it work a lot quicker. So here is our first mess and Kendra, you have the list so you have to help me out here.

Kendra: Okay. I have the list. Okay. So this one is actually one that I heard a lot and it was that all you need to grow an audience is an ads budget. There's a lot of marketers that are pushing running ads to grow your following. And this is not us telling us that we don't agree with ads. I actually run ads. Ads are a tool, but when you're new and starting out, I just don't think it's a good place to start. I think you need to start organic because ads are really fucking expensive. Like I'm spending, especially right now at this time of year, because it's the fourth quadrant of the year, it's Christmas time, we just had Black Friday, cyber Monday, everyone is marketing.

And so I was spending, I've upped my budget to over a hundred dollars a day and that's a lot of money and that barely competes with the other people in the auction. So it's just like until you have a proven method, until you know who you're talking to, and you have a program that you've proven, you've gotten testimonials, you've gotten people results, ads are not really a place to go. And just because you maybe do have a budget for ads, maybe you've got a bunch of money from somewhere else because you did well in your corporate job or something. It still doesn't mean that those ads are actually going to lead to a good audience. Right Christine?

Christine: Totally. Totally. It's literally, if you haven't proven yourself organically, running ads is like taking a $50 bill and just throwing it down the toilet. And it might be harsh. And again, it's not an anti ads bashing. It's the philosophy of thinking that ad is the magic bullet to sell your product. Because you might think that you have invented the next kind of Spanx or whatever, but in fact it doesn't resonate with your audience. It's actually a product that doesn't quite work. And believe us, we have tried. We're not just making this stuff up. Kendra has launched a gazillion times. I've launched a gazillion times to crickets. And the reason why it was crickets, it's because we didn't test it out. We didn't actually organically test it out. We threw money at it and it didn't work.

So we learned different lessons from this. So we know now the do's and don'ts of the ads industry and we teach that in our Mastermind. But the essence of it is that if anyone tells you that ads is going to change your life and that you just fork over five grand or something like that and it's going to, your ROI is going to be triple on that. It's just not true, especially if you've never done it before. If you don't have an audience, it's lies. I'm very sorry to say, it's not bundling like that, but we've just both been there and it's not working. So please, please, please, please, please do not start with ads. Don't create a course and run gazillion ads to it and think that this is going to be the next 100 K for 2020. It's going to be very heartbreaking and disappointing.

So what we recommend doing is really create. Yes, create. Don't overthink it. Test it out with the people you have. If you only have 10 people, if nobody buys, just ask yourself a question, and if you have a hundred people. If you have more, obviously the chances are bigger, the more people you have. But if there's not even a little bit of interest in there, something's iffy. So really fine tune it until people really want to get a hold of it and then, sure. Start running ads, start experimenting. But it should never, never, ever be your first step, ever.

Kendra: Yeah. Totally agree. And I've done the same thing. I remember my first course, I had this coach and they're like, oh yeah, you just need to spend this much money on ads to the webinar and she kept convincing me to up my ads budget and she's like, "It's okay. I have clients do this all the time, like 15 to 30 K launches." And I didn't sell any. I sold like two spots. I lost money on four launches with that method. And what I realized is that I hadn't tested the product, it wasn't actually what people wanted, and it didn't matter that I could get 300 people on a webinar, I still couldn't sell to them because they weren't [crosstalk 00:06:54] enough.

Christine: That's very true. Exactly. And you will probably get leads, but they're not necessarily qualified leads and it doesn't mean that it's going to convert to your product. So there's a big, big, big, big, big, how do you say, discrepancy between those leads you're getting and what you're selling. So please do yourself a favor and try it out. Make sure you speak in a voice that is you, that is authentically you so that the people who connect with you actually know what they are getting and are not suddenly thinking, you're reading off a script and then suddenly switching personas when you're actually being yourself. It's just throwing them off and it's just like, "Nope, I'm not going to give that person my money because I don't even know who they really are." People know that immediately. Like it doesn't make sense. You might think that it makes sense but it doesn't. So that was our first wine.

Kendra: Yeah. And it's a good one. And it's actually like finding your own, like authentic voice is something that we actually are teaching in our program because it's really, really important that you speak with your own words. And not someone else's, but it's not always as easy as just doing that.

Okay.

Christine: For sure.

Kendra: All right, so number two, this one I heard actually before we were launching your Mastermind, but it stuck in my head like a sliver and kind of just like irritated me. It's just a numbers game and I actually hate that for so many reasons because first off, when you say it's just a numbers game and you're just concerned about numbers, you forget that what we're doing is actually talking to humans. Yeah, we're talking to our phones and our computer screens. But on the other end of that are real humans with emotions, with feelings, with hopes, with dreams. These are people. And so that pisses me off. First off, the whole it's a numbers game. Well, no, it's humans. Like what the hell, you know?

Christine: Exactly. And I do think we need to precise that it does make a difference whether you sell a journal or washing powder versus what we usually sell, which is health or personal development or changing lives basically. I do think there is a difference between that, but yeah, if you are in a coaching kind of role or service provider that does not work and people see right through it.

Kendra: Yeah and I think we have to make a distinction between an influencer and a business owner. Influencers are popular people on Instagram. You have a ton of followers, but just because they have hundreds of thousands of followers doesn't mean they actually make any money or know anything about that audience. Numbers actually don't matter, especially today, and me and Christine were at Social Media Marketing World in March and that's what all the top marketing experts in the world, were all there and every single talk we saw, really came back down to, it's not about quantity, it's about quality. It's actually about building relationships with your audience, getting to know them, connecting, that sort of thing. And you don't need many people in your following to actually have a successful business.

Me and Christine do not have big followings on any respect in terms of emails, social following. We don't have much people, but we have successful businesses and it's because we've really focused on the quality of those relationships. Numbers just feed your ego. And we all do it. Like sometimes I'm like, oh I wish I had more followers and I get in that ego mindset, but I have to check myself and be like, it doesn't matter. I don't need numbers if they're not the right people.

Christine: Exactly. And I think what also people think is numbers and speed. You need to get as many people as quickly as possible so that you have more many people to shout at, in a way. I do want to get more people I haven't focused on it at all. It's really not my thing.

For 2020, I am going to focus on it but I am not expecting to have a gazillion followers, a gazillion new subscribers. Because the way that I want to do it is that I really just have people who connect with me.

Actually coming back to Social Media Examiner World, the conference, you were in a room with people who are advising or consulting the big corporations on who to hire as influences and they basically said to stay away from people who have super huge numbers because especially after the whole fire festival debacle, it's just come clear that that's not the way that it is. So it's not about the huge, huge, huge numbers game. It's about having the people that are truly invested in you and people stock for a long time. It just takes them a long, long, long time.

And Kendra uses this beautiful example regularly. It's like even if you have, people are like, oh, I only had like 14 people tune in at my Instagram live. It's like, hang on a minute, this is like having 14 people in your living room who are actually taking time out of their day to listen to you. That's huge. How dare you be as rude and to dismiss them. That's just fucking rude. You don't do that, man. It pisses me off. Yeah. You can see we're very passionate about this.

Kendra: We're very passionate. Yeah. And I love that. And it's so true because it doesn't matter, if you have 14 people following you, imagine one of those people could become your client and if you're charging properly, that's your money for the next month and you're good. And then you get to help that person and do what you really want to be here to do, which is help people. So we have to be really grateful for all the people who do follow us. Right now we have six people on with us live and we are grateful for every single one of you. And we're not like, oh, only six people are watching us. We're like, wow, six people are hanging out with us, that's so cool.

Christine: Thanks. You are amazing guys.

Kendra: We love you. Okay. Okay, so that's number two. And then number three, this is one that I actually had never heard before and I was like, "Sorry, say that again. What? Say that again." And one of our health coaches was told that content doesn't matter and there's no point in putting any of it out there.

Christine: Oh my God, I don't even know where to start with that one. Seriously? How the hell are people supposed to find you then? If you don't create content, I don't know if this person maybe doesn't understand what content actually is. Not sure.

But if you don't create content, it means that you don't exist in a way. How are people supposed to find you? How are people... Yes, maybe you only have a referral business which works if you are very local, maybe sometimes in the online space because it's a small bubble in a way, but we all want to have as many leads as possible that want to work with us because they know who we are and what we do and personally, all my business, pretty much 90% comes from Google. I never pay a cent, but it's because I am consistent in creating content. That doesn't mean that I work nonstop on creating. Not at all. I'm a lazy person. I don't do a lot of work. But I do have a content flow system where I can batch things. I work one day a week, not even, half a day maybe, not even. Like two hours once every month.

And everything is batched out for the next two months. So there's smart ways of doing it, but the ROI on that, is invaluable. And especially if you're starting out, you don't want to throw money down the drain. It's just not smart and you don't have any most of the time. So it's just content is the cheapest way of getting authority, of people finding you. And it's just, you want to share your wisdom. How are you in business if you don't even want to have people know what you know? I don't get it. I don't understand.

Kendra: I can't even keep my mouth shut. I'm sharing content because I just like, I'm so passionate about what I do and I'm just always so excited to teach. And the thing is there's so many people out there providing so much value. So if you're not out there creating content and sharing your wisdom and value, then how are you going to stand out? Plus how are people going to trust you? That's like the trust game. That's how people get to know you, your personality, your voice, how you talk, what you offer. And ultimately, I think that's why people buy from you has more to do with their connection to you as a person rather than how good your product is.

So if you're not out there sharing your knowledge and your personality and your content and giving them value, I don't even understand... The only way in my brain that this could work is having an extraordinarily high ads budget. Like being able to spend thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars a month to pull people into a funnel that provides value, but there's still content in that funnel. So that's where I'm kind of stuck on this one. And that would be crazy. You would have to be spending like 20 K a month on ads to bring people in like that and have it be worth while.

Christine: I agree. And the other thing is it just, for me it's a very scarce mindset because it tells me that a person doesn't want, like don't tell them everything or they won't buy from you. Bullshit. People will always buy from you if they like you and if they need you. The advice that you're going to give them in your bespoke programs, it's always going to be different from what you give in your blog posts. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be very generous in your blog posts though. And I have more often than not, people who cannot afford to work with me, if they really do their due diligence find pretty much everything I do on my blog and I'm totally fine with that. So it's like, meh.

Kendra: Yeah. And I think something to keep in mind, I think people get confused with free content versus paid content. In my opinion, you just give away everything for free because in the end, everyone can find anything they want to know on Google or YouTube for free. That is the reality. But why do they invest in you? Well, because you've organized it in a very nice way so that they can work through it in small chunks step-by-step. They probably get access to you through some sort of support, through one-on-one, through Facebook or whatever, and that support with implementation and working through with an actual human, I mean that's what people pay for. You can't get that. You can't just find that on Google. You can't get human interaction, support and community just on YouTube. You actually have to invest in something like that.

So I just think, yeah, you could probably find every single thing I teach, I probably said it at one point or another, go through my IG TV channel, it's a fucking gold mine. Like it's all over the place. So if you want to spend hundreds of hours doing that, then all the power to you. I've done a lot of things that way just by consuming free content. But a lot of your clients, they just want you to tell them what to do.

Anyways, I know we all have blocks around content. I think content creation and feeling inspired to write content, it's a big source of stress and overwhelm for coaches. So I think we'd love to believe that we don't need it.

Christine: But that's bullshit. Bullshit.

Kendra: Yeah, bullshit. Okay, so that's number three. This next one might surprise you guys, but it's like BS-ish. But in some states it's true. But anyways, so online courses are the best business models. This is a tough one because you guys probably know that I have courses and I actually love the course model and I do think it's a great business model, but I think where coaches go wrong with this is this is where they start. And just because people are out there and making money and creating businesses based on courses, that's usually not where they started and it's not a good place to start. What are your thoughts Christine?

Christine: Agreed. No, absolutely. I think the reason why a lot of people believe it, is because they see that I had a gazillion billion dollar launch or what do I know? 750 K launch with my course and coaches who have done that are then teaching that course. But what they don't teach you is all the fails and tries that it took them before that and all the private clients they worked with one-on-one to figure out what they should actually put into their course. And I think that is what makes your course fail. It's because you don't actually have the experience of working with your private clients. So you don't have their language. You don't exactly know what their questions are. You can guess. But again, you have no fucking clue until you actually talk to them and you actually have the experience. You might think you do. But I promise you, you don't.

And it's only after getting that and hearing it over and over and explaining the same thing over and over, that you will be able to pinpoint what it actually is that you should put into that course otherwise it's just guessing. And most of the time, it goes wrong. I honestly don't know anyone who sold their first course out and were successful with it. I really don't know anyone with it.

However, if you do have that, if you've been in practice for quite a while, if you know you've got it down, it can be a very lucrative model. Again though, courses you will have a certain amount that you can charge, you will need a lot more people to buy your course than going one-on-one. So starting out with that is very frustrating because you will need to put in the same effort to sell, believe me, but the revenue that you're getting is much smaller. So it takes you a lot more effort in a way until you have that loyal following and you will never get that loyal following just from launching one course after the next straight from the gate. You will actually have to create content. You have to take that time to build that following and then sure it should be a fucking gold model.

And the more you launch it, the more experience you get. But starting with it, is ridiculous. The content is most likely not going to be where people want to hear and it takes a lot of effort. So focus on high well-priced, one-on-one perfection, what you can do, or not perfectionist. I'm not a perfectionist, but really hone down on your skill, get paid what you're worth. It's just so difficult for first people, start off with that. Then we can talk about courses. It's just the order of things.

Kendra: Yeah, I agree. I think, wanting to do a course or group program is a great goal. Like we all want to scale up and at some point one-to-one, we kind of top out with income, with the amount of people we can take on, and we burn out too. So I think moving to a group program, going to a course model is great, but you can't start with it like Christine said, because until you have actually gotten real results for real people and you've gained testimonials, you can't sit there on social media and promise people that you can get them the result with that course if you've never actually gotten a result for a human. Because literally you're talking out of your ass and it's inauthentic and it's [crosstalk 00:21:17] and it's not cool. And so, I get it, some people are like, well I just don't really want to do the one on one and I get it that that doesn't have to be your forever business model, but you have to put the groundwork in.

And Christine's right. It does take a lot of energy to sell a lower price program and if you have a small following, it's going to be you could literally make everything in one course launch that you make with one client.

Christine: Yes. It's happened.

Kendra: I talk a lot about this on my YouTube channel. I actually have a course coming out about group programs that basically teaches you exactly how to do this, in what order, and how to basically prove and validate your course before you even sell it, which there's a really great way to do this. I did this with my age to me expert course and we'll be talking about this in the Mastermind as well. But yeah, you can lose a lot of money. And I think the big disconnect goes with this is what you know people need and what they actually want sometimes are two entirely different things. And ultimately, you may know what they need, but you've got to dangle them in with what they want. You don't know what they want until you talk to real humans.

Christine: Exactly. And I think that experience leaves a lot of people drained, burned out and in the end, unfortunately leaving their business or just giving it up in the end. There's so many people who give up every year and it's a shame and it's just because you have to do the due diligence first. It's just the way it is.

Kendra: It's just the way it is. Sorry guys. Sorry. All right. Okay, so this is one, our last one, number five. So this one I have two points for this one. So maybe this is like a two point in one but I have, all coaches are the same and you can do this alone and all marketing strategies and advice work for every business.

Christine: This one gets me. This makes my blood boil. Like seriously. Get yourself in a scenario where you are on a sales call or free session or whatever they want to call it. A preliminary session is for me, but with a coach, and if they tell you that they can guarantee you results and that their method works for everyone, run for the fucking hills. Because that's not how it works. It's just different coaches, especially business coaches, have experience with a certain type of person. I find that selling health, is a completely different animal than selling copy or sales or business coaching itself. It's just very, very different. And if you haven't built a business in a certain area, especially an area like health or services or personal development, you have no fucking clue what it's like. Because people are very different in their thinking on how they spend money.

And I see lots of people yelling at me, "This is not true. The psychology for everyone is the same." No, it's not. We prioritize very differently. We just look at different elements that we purchase in a different way.

So there are some fundamental truths, yes, of persuasion and so forth. But there's a lot of individuality to it too. And so having people say that I can help you no matter what you are trying to sell is just not true. And so I would really, really be wary of this. And it's just not fair because very often those people are very skilled in selling and selling money. And in the end you as a coach, want to make money so you are the perfect sales target for them, so their strategy works wonders on you and you will be like, "Wow, they sold me so greatly, they must be able to help me sell my clients." No. Unfortunately that's not true.

Kendra: Yeah, and I think with health and wellness, people's health is so personal and I do think there's a longer touch point from when people find you to when they eventually invest in you. I think that is a much longer period. I think a lot more groundwork has to go in. A lot more investing in building those relationships. I think that's true for most industries and that's kind of the way things are headed in terms of coaching. But for health and wellness, I think it's longer for a lot of people.

Christine: It can be longer and I think it can also, a lot of it depends on how you are as a person. I think the personal development bit on yourself is maybe even harder. Because people are much more sensitive as to who they work with. So either it takes longer or they instantly need to connect with the real you. And being the real you in the online space publicly is fucking scary. It takes time to get there. So I think there's two different ways of looking at it because most people who work with me, they just Google me, they book a call, and they hire me. They haven't actually looked me up before. But I think it is because they immediately see who I am and either the shoe fits or it doesn't. It's just like-

Kendra: You've also really leveraged media and publications. I think you have made your street cred because you had done the work to be featured in things like Forbes, [crosstalk 00:26:11] geographic and podcasts. So it's like people see, they see everywhere you've been featured and how you're all these other industries, experts or brands, experts. So they're like in. They're like, this chick knows her shit. But you did a lot of work to set that up.

Now I don't have anything like that. So for my people, I have to spend a few months nurturing people and I'm fine with that because I like to just jam out and chat with people. So it all comes down to the type of business model you have. But the reason I think you have a lower touch point is because you've really built your credibility and that didn't happen overnight.

Christine: No, it didn't. It really didn't. Yeah. And it's just a different way of doing it. It's just a different animal people. And then the other thing is, yeah, you can't do it alone. It's very true. Being in business is, it's the best thing in the world. But it is tough because it's not just about, first of all, you provide a service. You have continuous education. You have to build a fucking business, which means marketing, accounting, everything. You do the whole nine yards. You change. Ultimately, if you want to be a great business person, you need to be able to be actually in love with yourself in a way, not in a narcissistic kind of thing, but that takes a lot of work and so you change, your environment changes, and doing that when you own is going to drive you insane. You need a support network that you can vent to. That will help you to see your blind spots. That can support you when you need it, when you are about to give up because something fucked up happened and it's just crucial to have that.

I think on your own, you're going to burn out. You're not going to believe in yourself at some point, and it's not major, but sometimes it's just one person that telling you, I believe in you. I know you can do this. I don't have a doubt about it. You just need yourself, see yourself through somebody else's eyes in order to get back up and get going and it will all come together. But you need that and you need other people's experiences to fast track because you're reinventing the wheel with a lot of pain instead of just learning from experiences that have been had.

Kendra: Yeah, I totally agree. And I don't know where I heard this, I just consume so much. I'm like a monster consumer of content. So I hear a lot of things and I forget where I heard them, but I remember hearing someone on a podcast be like, building a business is the biggest course in personal development that you will ever do. And I totally agree because your business triggers you and it brings out your insecurities, your past traumas. It brings out a lot and you don't even realize that when you're starting out. I had no idea. And when I had a lot of the coaches I've been working with over the past little while, they actually have all the tools they need to succeed, but a lot of them are just standing in their own way. They are blocked and they don't even realize that they are telling themselves certain stories about what people can afford and what they can't afford and what they're worth charging and what people think of them online. And it's just like, no, this is actually not true.

So that's why we wanted to create the 360 Mastermind, our year long business coaching program specifically for health coaches because we have built successful health coaching businesses and I really believe if you're going to invest in a coach, it should be someone who's done what you have done. Christine is still doing health coaching. I'm sort of like that side of my business is slowly going away. But I was doing that up until a couple months ago and Christine still does it.

So we know what we're talking about in terms of building a business online and we really wanted to cultivate a small and intimate group. So we're going to be 12 plus us. That's 14 total. To just really be able to support coaches. And really have that whole year to help them work through all the personal shit, help them see their blocks, help them like get more confidence, learn to speak with their own voice, and build a personal brand. But also all the nerdy strategy stuff, like learn how to sell, learn how to trap, learn how to utilize social media, and also get out there and do things with integrity and authenticity. You don't have to be the bro marketing health coach who's out there just pushing, pushing, pushing and punching your way through. Because sure you can make money that way, but I just feel for health coaches, the money is just a small part of what we actually want to be doing.

We got in this to help people. We want to help people. Ultimately, we have a bigger purpose. And if we're just taking people's money and being done with it at the end of the day, I actually think that's going to make you feel dead inside.

Christine: Agreed. Agreed. Amen. I also think, we've been in this game for a while. We've seen tragedies happen. We just see through a lot of shit. If I see the sentence, "I help you be the best version of yourself." One more time, I'm just going to throw up. It's just like, "Dude, nobody's going to spend money on being the best version of themselves. It's not a sexy sales point."

Kendra: Yeah. Nobody's talked like that. When's the last time you were like, "Kendra, I want to be the best version of myself today." I'm like, "Did you take mushrooms?" Like, what's going on?

Christine: No. And it's just tragic. We've all been there. It's just what comes to mind. And again, it's just working with people that you understand what they need. But the thing is, we've worked with these people. We know how they speak. So it's just an amazing shortcut.

So for us, the 360 is a 360. It's a holistic view and it's also really our goal to have 2020 be the year where the people who have trusted us and have signed up, are literally going to be able to do this full time and have a great living. That's our goal. It's just to be able to say, "Okay, you're making this amount each month, this is your job." Instead of saying, "I might have to go back to a real job." It's going to be a proud, "This is my fucking real job. I'm living the life and it's working." And that's what we want. It's fab.

Kendra: Totally. We want to help you build your dream life. Whatever that looks like for you. Whether that's working one on one, whether it's eventually launching a group program, whether that means having four hours for a morning routine in the morning, which is my life. That's how much time I need to be ready to show up as authentically as myself.

So basically with the program, we start in January. We actually only have one spot left. We told everyone we sold out and then I did the numbers and I was like, I totally miscounted. We actually have one spot left.

Christine: Don't worry. We do have assistants who are our logical brains and who are actually doing the stuff for us usually.

Kendra: Totally because we... Counting, not my strong point.

Christine: Mine either. [crosstalk 00:33:00] We're very good in our own zones of geniuses, but we also really know what we don't do well. Counting one thing being the monster.

Kendra: Yeah. And we have so many good things planned for the Mastermind. We're going to meet monthly for a training. We're going to do group coaching and you're going to have private mentorship as well. And then we do two live in person retreats at a beautiful resort in Colorado Springs in March and November.

Yeah. So we're going to be basically meeting three times a month. Supporting you in three different ways. Plus you will have access to us all year long and we're just going to help you. If you do the work, I have no doubt you'll get the result.

Christine: No doubt at all.

Kendra: So I just threw that link into the chat box and I'll throw it maybe into the description of this video after we've gone live. But yeah, you can go to that link and you can book a call with us and just see, does it feel like a fit? We're really committed to finding the right people. I actually turned people away who I just didn't think were going to get the value out of it. Either because they weren't ready or because they were actually too far along in their business. We actually turned one women away because she was outside the group. Everyone's kind of in that one to three years in their business, struggling to make ends meet but also very passionate, very talented. But we had one woman who was just like multiple six figures and beyond and I was like, I just don't think it's the fit.

So we're not going to try to sell you if we don't feel like we can help you and it's a fit. So this is kind of like a no pressure call with me or Christine just just to chat and see how it goes. Anyways, that's our spiel.

Christine: All right, so I think that's it. Let us know if you enjoyed this, if you want more of this, and then obviously tune into our podcast as well as 360 have this podcast, which is amazing. There's so much content in there. Content, see. And, yeah, we'd love to have you.

Kendra: Yeah, totally. And thanks so much, Christine, for hanging out with me and bye everyone. Love you all.

Welcome to the 360 Health Biz podcast's Biz Bomb where we give you a super quick actionable tip for your business.

Today Christine shares one of her favorite apps - InShot. This is a free video editing app where you can trim or split your videos, and add music and filters. But Christine's favorite reason for using InShot is that you can convert your video to horizontal so you can post it in your Instragram stories and IGTV!

Tune in to learn more about the InShot app and how to utilize it for your content workflow!

Hello and welcome. So today for the 360 Biz Bomb, I have a little app for you that I use and that I adore and it is called InShot. InShot, in one word, and is especially for those of you Instagrammers out there. As you know, we have a wonderful content workflow that you can find on our very first episode that we have a guest on, which is Jamie Palmer. So she would talk about more about that there.So this fits in really nicely because I do video and I want you to re-purpose that video, but I don't necessarily always want to work with two cameras on my phone and the regular camera. So what I do is I take the regular video that is horizontal, which obviously doesn't really work that well for Instagram stories. but what I do is I use it and I use InShot at the same time.So with InShot, you basically can change the canvas and so the canvas where I plop it in, is iPhone screen style and then you can even change that background. But what it means, it is pretty, it looks good, it has a video in horizontal embedded in it, and so you can look and have that half professional and the day when you shoot out all that content, which is for me every week, where everything goes out to my blog, to YouTube to Anchor, a podcast or Spotify and so forth, to quotes, to Instagram, whatever. I'm on, every platform, literally. Then it also goes out, you have to do it manually, obviously, but it also goes out on IGTV and you can just teach a little bit more. You can talk a little bit more about everything and it just because I have it edited, you get more bang for your buck that way, and the app is free.So sometimes, once you have the logo in there, but here's the trick. If you click on the logo, it will ask you to remove once and you just say, "Sure," and you do that every time and that's it.So I hope this was helpful to you and we'll talk again next episode. Bye.

We are stepping in the unknown, confusing (to some) and taboo territory on today’s 360 Health Biz Podcast! We have Alison Gordon, CEO of 48North Cannabis Corp. to talk about, you guessed it – cannabis!

In America, cannabis is federally illegal but at state level (in some states) medical cannabis is legal. In Canada however, cannabis became legal across the nation in October of 2018 and edibles became legal in October 2019. However, there's a lot of regulatory work that still needs to be done in Canada and the US.

Depending on your interest and involvement in cannabis, there are areas that are black and white, gray, and frankly…green.

In this episode we discuss:- legalization and licensing of cannabis in Canada vs America- what is vaping and is it legal?- marketing around public opinion- how to work around marketing cannabis restrictions- organic cannabis and regulation around quality- illegal dispensaries vs legal licensed dispensaries- medical conditions that have seen positive impact from cannabis use- public perception: why alcohol is accepted by cannabis isn’t

We learned a lot from Alison in today’s episode and we hope you do too!

Alison Gordon - CEO 48North Cannabis Corp. Alison is a veteran of the Canadian cannabis industry, bringing unique experience and relationships to her role as co-chief executive officer of 48North. A skilled marketer, she is celebrated for her ability to shift public opinion and consumer behaviour and has been named one of Canada’s Top 10 Marketers by Marketing magazine. As co-founder of Rethink Breast Cancer, Alison is credited with growing a new generation of young breast cancer supporters, compelled by her ground-breaking communication and pharmaceutical expertise in the health-care realm. Today, Alison is applying her skills to 48North’s business plan in this new era of the cannabis industry. She is on the board of directors for the Cannabis Canada Council.

Connect with us on social:instagram.com/360healthbizpodcastfacebook.com/360healthbizpodcast

@kendraperryinc@sleeplikeaboss_

TRANSCRIPTS

Kendra: Hey guys, what's up? Kendra here, welcome to the 360 Health Biz Podcast. I am super excited for today's show because we're talking about kind of a sexy topic. We're talking about marijuana, we're talking about cannabis. It's a very current topic on social media, because we did just recently legalize it. So, we're going to be talking with an awesome guest today. And unfortunately, Christine's not with me today cause she's off gallivanting the planet as usual. I actually don't even know where she is today. But, she will be back, joining me for our next recording.So today, it's just me and our awesome guests. We are good. Like I said, talking about cannabis, which was actually something I'm very excited to talk about because you guys follow me on social media, you've probably heard me talk about this. I live in a very small town in British Columbia that was basically built on the marijuana industry and up until recently, our whole economy ran on it.So myself included, I'm comfortable saying this now because it is cool. But, I used to be very much involved in that industry, and a lot of the people I know in this town are very much involved in it. And now that it's been legalized, a lot of my friends are adjusting to kind of like the new landscape of what is coming.So, I am sitting here with Alison Gordon. She is the CEO of 48North Cannabis Corporation. She is a veteran of the Canadian cannabis industry, bringing unique experience and relationships to her role as co-Chief Executive Officer for 48North. She is a skilled marketer. She is celebrated for her ability to shift public opinion and consumer behavior, and has been named one of Canada's top 10 marketers by Marketing Magazine. That's pretty impressive. And, she is also the co founder of the Rethink Breast Cancer. Alison is a credited with growing a new generation of young breast cancer supporters, is held by her groundbreaking communication and pharmaceutical expertise in the healthcare realm.Today Alison is applying her skills to 48North's business plan in this new era of the cannabis industry. She's on the board of directors with the Cannabis Canada Council.Welcome Alison. Thank you so much for being here.

Alison Gordon: Thank you for having me.

Kendra: So, that is a pretty impressive bio. I would love to know first and foremost, like how did you end up in this industry? Like how did this all get started for you?

Alison Gordon: Well, it started in high school, when I started smoking weed and never really stopped. But in terms of as a career, and you know, within the regulated legal industry, I started thinking about this industry, well let's put it this way. In 2008, I had a close family member that was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer. And her doctor recommended that she try medical cannabis. And I was like, what? Canada has a medical cannabis program? This is back in 2008, don't forget. So, a long time ago. And I had no idea. And I got very excited, and you know, looking back was obviously quite naive and thinking about these ideas that I had for what I thought this industry could become. I was also really amazed at seeing an older woman who had never smoked weed or used it before, using it daily to help with anxiety, pain, sleep, all the things that come with end-of-life care.And so I was like, okay, this is shifting. Clearly, there's a shift here. People are going to recognize the benefits of medicinal cannabis. And then for me, I started to think and believe that ultimately we would move towards legalization, which has happened. So, I really started looking at the industry, both Canada and the U.S. back then. At the time I was co-running Rethink Breast Cancer, which I had confounded with my partner, MJ. Was very happy there. We were growing this international organization, working with young women with breast cancer. But I just kept having this nibbling feeling that I wanted to get involved in the cannabis industry. And in 2013 I decided, you know what, Rethink is running amazingly. It can survive without me, as anything can. And I transitioned onto the board and started working in Canada, in the industry.

Kendra: Very, very cool. And so, I think like, for those of you, for those of you who are American, or from outside of Canada, Canada did just recently legalize it. And I know in the U.S., I'm not super familiar with the laws there, but I know in certain states it's more or less like may be decriminalized or legalized to some degree.And you know, in your bio you mentioned like kind of shifting public opinion and consumer behavior. Can you speak a little bit to that? Like why do you think it's important to shift public opinion? Like what is the current public opinion and like why is that so important to you?

Alison Gordon: Well, let me first deal with what you were saying. So in the U.S., it is federally illegal, still at the federal level. So at the state level of certain states, it is legal for adult use, medical, these things. But the federal obviously trumps the state. And in the Obama administration, you know, there was the Cole memo, which allowed the States the right to govern in this way. With Trump, it's still unclear. So you know, Canada was in a very unique position and still is to be legalized at the federal level.So, you know, coming back to your question of shifting public opinion. Well you know, this is the biggest part of our job on so many levels. Because what I always say is that the prohibition of cannabis is probably some of the best marketing that ever existed. It should be on the cover of every marketing textbook.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: As the amount of misinformation that exists out there in the world amongst educated, smart people as well as you know, people, all sorts of people. But, it is just staggering and trying to break that misinformation seems to be challenging.

Kendra: Yeah.

Alison Gordon: I think we've made tons of headway. The fact that Canada has actually legalized shows that, you know, the government understood that this is no longer something that the mass of Canadian voters would have issue with. Cause otherwise they wouldn't do it.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: And you know, there's all sorts of different stats in Canada and the U.S. about public opinion. And the opinion, in terms of legalizing, is most definitely significantly higher than those that don't believe it should be legal in both Canada and the U.S. But I think what people don't realize is so much of that misinformation, yes they might believe it's legal, but the view of the type of people who use cannabis or whether they want it in their community, it's still strong. And that's challenging because that impacts our, you know, government representatives who pass the regulatory environments. And I think you know, a lot of the information we get from those, you know, MPs and others still believe that cannabis is a drug, and it's a problem, and it's all of these things. So for us to fully move into a legal market and to get consumers to understand the value of having a legal market, there's a lot of regulatory work that needs to be done in Canada and especially in the U.S.

Kendra: Yeah. And I mean something I've noticed cause like you know, I'm from Nelson, British Columbia. If you're familiar with that tiny little town.

Alison Gordon: Yes of course, very familiar.

Kendra: Very much like a town built on the marijuana industry. And you know, it's just interesting cause the dispensary's, you know, before legalization, you can pretty much get anything. It was kind of in this gray zone. But now that we've moved into legalization, like you actually can't get as much. Like you can't get the edibles. Like you can only get like...

Alison Gordon: ...at the legal dispensary's.

Kendra: Yeah, totally.

Alison Gordon: Yeah. Well those are not yet legal in Canada.

Kendra: Okay.

Alison Gordon: So to date, like ending very soon, cause it's coming on October 17th of this year. But, what's been legal in Canada for the past year is flower and one very limited extract. So not edibles, not vapes, not topicals. So anyone who sees those products in the Canadian market today, and likely over the next two months, those are not legal. And so with the big crisis that's been going on, you know, I want to make sure that everybody understands that vapes are not legal in Canada right this minute. It will be in the coming weeks and months. But you, you know, if you don't buy them from a legal entity, then you actually don't know what's in them.

Kendra: And can you just speak to the vape crisis. And like what is vaping? Cause I'm a little bit confused about what it actually is. And I think some of our listeners are maybe unfamiliar with it.

Alison Gordon: Well, I mean vaping is a, I want to say technology. It's probably not the right word. But it's, it's a very particular, well it's not a mechanism, but delivery method.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: That uses a certain form of oils and heat to turn, whether it's flower or oil into something that you, a vapor essentially you can inhale into your lungs.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: You know, this is, vaping been around for a very long time. And in terms of things like the volcano, or you know, different forms of it. But what happened, I think, and I don't know the exact history, but with the proliferation of these E-cigarettes people then took that, or I don't know which came first. But you know, that we have sort of that version on the cannabis side, where it's essentially you can buy disposable vapes. So meaning, you'll use it, and these vapes are made out of oil.

Kendra: Okay.

Alison Gordon: Right. So they're cannabis oil, sometimes mixed with other oils. Right? So it really depends on what you buy. And that's why you need to buy from a legal market.Because for example, we acquired a company in the U.S. called Quill. They make vapes. Those vapes are 100% cannabis oil.

Kendra: Okay.

Alison Gordon: There's no additives, no fillers. Often people, especially in the black market, are cutting that with oil, other oils.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: And so you don't know what's in those oils. There could be flavors or this vitamin E acetate that people are talking about, that they think might be what's causing the deaths, they don't know.So you know, essentially when you're vaping, generally, unless you're taking flower and putting it in a vaporizer, which would be a much larger apparatus. If it's just one of these pens as we call them, it's an oil. And it being heated, and you're inhaling it into your lungs. Obviously there isn't a ton of research in general, even on the E-cigarette side as to the effect of vaporizing versus smoking a cigarette.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: And then on the cannabis side, you know, same, same. But you know, again, it's been thought to be a better alternative to smoking. But I guess that's TBD.

Kendra: Exactly. Yeah. And that's really interesting. And I think like within the health and wellness space for all of our coaches who are listening, I think a lot of them, I've seen all just a lot of discussion in general in the communities that people are interested in like, you know, using these types of products personally, or maybe with their clients. But there seems to be a big concern about quality. And personally, I've seen indoor grow shows in my community where I see a lot of chemicals being used for example. And you know within the health and wellness space, like people are always really concerned about quality, and organic, and the fact that things aren't used with chemicals if we are going to be using it for a health application. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Alison Gordon: Yeah, well I mean 48North, we are organic in two out of three of our facilities, our large outdoor farms. So the bulk of our product coming online will be organic. So I completely agree with you. That said, the legal market in Canada, again, if you buy from a legal dispensary or from online from your government, you know, online entity or whichever province you're in, if you're in Canada, or in the U.S. from a legal entity, these things are all heavily lab tested.

Kendra: Okay.

Alison Gordon: And the government in Canada has heavy, heavy regulations against using any form of pesticides. So even though we are 48North have gone through the process of being certified organic, I can say with a lot of faith that the legal market, you're not looking at the same level like any form of pesticides. Like for example, in Canada, you can't spray the plant past a certain point with anything, including water.And that's the government's way of just ensuring nothing passes through. And the truth is we have to lab test so heavily that, you know..., It's just like anything I say like you, you go into restaurants that have, in Ontario at least the green thing on the window that they've been inspected and everything's fine. You don't go buy an egg sandwich off someone sitting on the street with a plate. Like you just don't know what's in these things.So, this is the move that needs to happen towards the legal market. And it's not to say many people in the black market might be doing organic, or they might be doing all the right things. But how are you as the consumer supposed to know?

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: And so that's what I think you know, is where people need to get to from a health and wellness perspective, is recognizing there's value in lab testing. Whether or not you may pay a couple of cents more, 50 cents more, whatever, or less. I mean the legal market might be less in some instances. The upside of that is it's regulated.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: That's what we ask of our products and do.

Kendra: Yes. No, I absolutely agree. And would you say that's, like that would be similarly true of the U.S.? Like people purchasing in the U.S., if they buy from like a government body, like does that exist in the U.S. like can they try...

Alison Gordon: Well, it's not about buying from a government body. It's about buying from illegal licensed dispensary. And in the U.S., each state will have different requirements around lab testing. California has quite stringent requirements. So, you're quite certain in California that, you know, what you're buying from a legal market is being tested for all sorts of heavy metals, and same with Canada. So yes, it's about buying from a legal market. I think what confuses consumers is when they see stores on the street that are selling weed, they think it's legal because how does that exist if it's not legal? But, that's part of the confusion that's existing, both in Canada and the U.S., as you transitioned to this legal market.

Kendra: So yeah, and I do find that confusing. So, what you're saying is just because there is someone who has a shop open on this, on like the downtown street, it doesn't mean that it's regulated or that it's technically legal?

Alison Gordon: No, and I don't have an answer for you as to how that sort of store would get shut down. I can speculate that the police themselves are confused as to what's going on. That nobody likes to take time and resources in the court systems for things that won't result in jail time. I don't really know how or why. I think they do get shut down and they pop back up. Especially online is where this proliferating.So people go online, they can get it delivered to their door. They assume it's legal. So you know, I think it's, it behooves people to just actually understand it. Asking them are you legal? Like they may not get the truthful answer. I think it's depending where you are understanding. Like for example in Ontario online, the only place that's legal is the OCS.CA and then we only have about 25 stores in all of Ontario that are legal right now. They are giving out another 42 licenses. But there's some potential delay there. But yeah, I mean it's, it's, they have a symbol on their windows that show that they are actually a licensed retailer.

Kendra: Okay. Okay. That's good to know. Yeah. Cause I've been a little bit confused about that, and I have seen that happen in Nelson. Like places kind of like shut down and like come back up. And then places like now they can't sell this, but you can get it from their online store. And I think just everything being so new, there's a lot of confusion and hopefully that will, you know, over time have a...

Alison Gordon: Look, this isn't like a positive thing. But the easy way to know is like does the packaging look like this? Which is our pre-roll pack, which is the best that we can do in light of having to have these massive warning. And again not to say the black market wouldn't copy this as well. That's the challenge. Right?

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: But I just, if I was in the black market, why would I make it look like this? I would look more appealing.

Kendra: It would be a lot of effort. Like 10 points for effort, that's for sure. Okay. Yeah.

Alison Gordon: And no doubt it happens.

Kendra: Exactly. And I would love to speak a little bit more about like the whole health connection. Why medical marijuana and cannabis is you know, something that we should as health practitioners like consider for certain conditions. And obviously I think you've seen benefit with people who have breast cancer. Like what else can you speak to regarding that?

Alison Gordon: Well I mean I think there's a ton, a ton, a ton of content now on the web about this from people much more knowledgeable than me. But you know just having been in the industry for as long as I have, and speaking with patients, and people like, there's a ton of new actual clinical studies that are coming out. Which is great cause it's really just been anecdotal to date. So obviously with the advent of all these CBD products in the U.S. There's been a lot of interest in CBD. The FDA has approved a drug called Epidiolex made of CBD for epilepsy. So I think CBD is well known as an anti-inflammatory, anti-seizure that can really help people. I have friends with epilepsy that have gotten off all pharmaceuticals just by using CBD. Now of course, once again, not all CBD is created equal, although it is a molecule.But you know, again, it's doing a little bit of research and looking into the full spectrum. So, it is likely the cannabis plant has over a hundred cannabinoids. CBD is one of them, THC is another. THC is the cannabinoid that when heated gets you high. But there is a hundred cannabinoids and various things in the plant. So you know, it's trying out these full spectrum products that have that entourage effect.That's something I am biased towards. There is no clinical research to say that's any more effective than using a product like that CBD isolate. But I think intuitively it just makes sense. You know, pain management, glaucoma, MS, Parkinson's, I mean like it does all start to sound like really? But it truly, there is, you know, it's been obviously well-documented that humans have an endocannabinoid system. The cannabis plant and the receptors connect to that.And I think we're just starting to scratch the surface of understanding how cannabis can help. I mean social anxiety, anxiety's, there are people that I know, and I've read about that you know had extreme forms of anxiety and PTSD, never leaving the house, et cetera, et cetera. That now are able to have a more functioning existence thanks to using cannabis. Some might be okay with a very small amount of CBD. Others, it requires some THC, and you have the problem, or the challenge is, you know, I used to say it's a plant based medicine so of course there's trial and error. But I hate to say that because with pharmaceuticals I think we've all been brainwashed to believe that there's a consistent use, meaning the effect is going to be the effect. But I think the reality is if you have friends who have taken antidepressants, they often need to try three before there's one that works.So it's no difference, it's just you. You might need a very minimal dose of just CBD to be able to deal, like have your anxiety under control. Others may need more. So there is a trial and error right now, which is part of the problem that the state ranking perception, is that doctors don't have that same ease with which to prescribe and go 10 milligrams. But they were getting there, and we're getting there quickly. And so I think, you know, there's nothing to be scared of. You can try cannabis and see if it works for you. If you are worried about getting highs and start with the CBD product and see where you go.

Kendra: Yeah, yeah I love that. And, I especially love the application to pain management because I know a lot of people like that's how their addiction start. You know, they get into an accident or they have, you know, some sort of chronic issue and they end up addicted to pain pills.

Alison Gordon: Yeah. I mean there is a lot of research to show cannabis as a, obviously an amazing alternative to opioids. But also a successful treatment for opioid addiction.

Kendra: Okay.

Alison Gordon: And I think that, that's really important as well.

Kendra: Yeah, that's amazing. And I remember, like many years ago I had ACL reconstructive surgery, and they prescribed me Percocet, which made me feel disgusting. And my friend came over and gave me Phoenix Tears, which yeah. Are you familiar with those? I wasn't sure if that was the Nelson thing or like that's a legitimate, yeah.

Alison Gordon: Yeah, we know of it.

Kendra: And I remember using those and I mean like yeah, they made me super high and like kind of I couldn't really communicate well with people. But I, I wasn't, I was able to not use the Percocet. And like it killed all my pain and that was really amazing cause I just, I've never been really interested in taking pharmaceuticals. So I, yeah.

Alison Gordon: And again, like it's hard for you in that situation. Maybe you didn't have to be that high. Like your friends giving Phoenix Tears. Obviously that's not, you know, regulated. So you don't exactly know what's in it. Even though I'm sure we trust your friend, and it's not about what's in it from an ingredient standpoint. It's like dosing is quite complex, as you could imagine. So, as legal companies who have to lab test, when we say this is the dose, that's the dose.

Kendra: Yeah.

Alison Gordon: Also, obviously you don't have someone guiding you through that process.

Kendra: Exactly.

Alison Gordon: Like a physician, which you likely could do now, because we have many more physicians who are educated in this that could, you know, say let's start you on a one-to-one and let's work up. Your friend just kind of brought you Phoenix Tears.

Kendra: Yeah. And though they were so hot here for a while, like everyone was like, Phoenix Tears were like the hottest thing around town. And then this was back when it was illegal. And then I remember like they got so hot that people had to like ditch them and bury them in the forest, because the cops are getting super involved. But I do remember that and I really did appreciate the painkilling. And at the time I liked smoking weeds, so I was fine with being that high. These days, I would probably want to have someone guide me through the experience and not get so high so I could actually function.

Alison Gordon: Yeah. And, and again, like this is a very common saying is you start low, and goes slow. Right? So it's like, it's the same thing. It's no different than Percocet or Oxycontin. I mean, it's totally different, I want to be clear about that. But what I need to say is the misperception that with a pharmaceutical, like that's what you're going to do. I mean, you might've taken that Percocet and maybe you only really needed half of it, or ideally don't take it at all.But you understand the point that I'm making, which is we lead such blind faith in the pharmaceutical industry and it's so fascinating to me to like, I wish I could fast forward 20 years. Because so much research is being done on cannabis and it's just going to be such a different world. And I just wonder if all of this will be, you know, misconceptions will be wiped out and people will be as skeptical about pharma as they are this poor little plant.

Kendra: Yeah, I mean it is really true. I've always found that interesting. Like how much trust people will have in like the pharmaceutical community, whereas like those types of drugs kill people all the time. Whereas like there's like street drugs and all these other things that like, you know, maybe magic mushrooms, and like marijuana, and stuff when people are just like, "Oh, that's illegal drugs." Like you're a druggie if you do that. Meanwhile, like most people are taking pharmaceuticals.

Alison Gordon: Well I think it's like the tides are definitely changing. Obviously the opioid crisis, especially in the U.S., but also in Canada is like getting front page attention. Which is amazing. But you know, at the same time, I think it's this balance. And my hope of course, is the reason people have faith in pharmaceuticals, whether it's right for them to or not, is it comes through physicians and physicians play a certain role in our society. But also, you know, where they're manufactured, that they're regulated, that things done clinical studies. So all of that gives the public the perception of safety. I'm not going to sit here and start trashing clinical studies, but I think people understand there's lots of ways to collect data. But at the same time, if you know, you got to play the game. And so the goal for our industry, of course, is to get this, you know, double blind studies done so we can prove to the powers that be that this is effective medicine for the things we're talking about.And you know, no one has ever in the history of, you know, released in, documented to died from cannabis use.

Kendra: Yeah.

Alison Gordon: So it's, you know, it's toll on your body is nothing and it's, I'm not going to say that, you know, people don't have an emotional addiction, because I don't know the answer whether that is. But there is no physical addiction that's been shown. And also I have many, many friends who were heavy cannabis users that might travel somewhere for two weeks that they can't get it, there is no physical withdrawal symptoms.

Kendra: Yeah.

Alison Gordon: I mean I think this word just has to spread amongst healthcare community and understand that, you know, a lot of what you hear that it's a gateway drug, it's just total bullshit.

Kendra: I think it is bullshit. I think alcohol is more of a gateway drug. Like I've always made that comparison. Like alcohol is so accepted. But you know, when I used to drink all the time, like I do all kinds of things I regretted, and like end up on like weird people's couches, and be like wake up in the morning and be like, "I can't fucking believe I did that." But like that never happened with weed. Like the worst thing that would happen is maybe I would like eat too many chips or something like that.

Alison Gordon: Yeah. I mean alcohol is really, to me it's unbelievable that people will say, "Oh my God, do you like, do your kids see your weed or whatever?" And quite frankly, like I also suffer the stigma myself. Meaning, I'm in this role, I'm CEO of this company, and I'm still like cleaning up the weed, you know, with my teenagers around, if they are around. But at the same time, I don't even think twice if they come down in the morning, and I've had people over and have drinking. I mean I don't drink myself, not, I never really did. And so, it's just an easy one to wipe out.But you know, first of all, alcohol isn't just about the bad decisions you make, but for sure it's there. But there's a ton of research that shows the effects of alcohol has on your body and your brain. They're making links to it, to Alzheimer's right now obviously liver diseases, all sorts of other things. But interesting to me is when you saw states like Colorado legalize cannabis, then you saw things like the alcohol sales went down about 30% in Colorado at that time. And then domestic violence went down by 30%. So we know, I think it's just, and this is where going back to 2014. So this information's out there. It's just like I said, you know, prohibition with like a stranglehold on our brains, and it's just people don't want to hear it and believe it.

Kendra: Yeah, I totally agree. And like that must make it challenging for like the marketing side of things. Cause you're a big marketer, top 10 marketers in Canada. Very cool. And like we love talking about marketing on this podcast, and like online business, and that sort of thing. So like how, like what is your sort of strategy towards like marketing, this sort of thing? Cause, obviously you have to shift public opinion, but like where do you go after that?

Alison Gordon: Well, the number one challenge beyond the challenge of shifting opinion is that in Canada we are not allowed [inaudible 00:29:02] as cannabis company anywhere. So, a variety of different strategies.So one thing we did was create an online platform called Latitude where we share stories about how when women use cannabis for their health and wellness in their day-to-day lives, and it's just average women. And it's, you know, some of them are a mother and daughter, or they may be a yoga teacher, or it may be, like it's all over the map. And the idea there is, when you read these stories, so I'm looking around to see if I have one of the books in the office, in my office, but I don't. But when you read it, and it sells at Indigo, and it's a beautiful book or sort of magazine thing, you, you know, there's, I think a subconscious level where it's like this person's just like me. This isn't a scary person. This person has a good job. They're not just on their couch. But also understanding their rituals around it and how they use it and when they use it. And what it's done for them.We also have hosted events latitude. Because again, we cannot do that as 48North because we sell cannabis and as part of that, we are not allowed to sponsor events, are not allowed to do all these things.

Kendra: Okay.

Alison Gordon: So Latitude, we've had a few events. The last one was on sex and pleasure and a lot of the women that came and spoke if, and the idea there is, it's like we have speakers and they might read poetry, they might tell a story. It's however they want to express themselves. And a lot of them were talking about, you know, really negative sexual experiences, whether it was like all the way of rape to just, you know, those are uncomfortable positions.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: Like you end up a being somewhere you don't really want to be, and feel in control of. And each one spoke about how cannabis brought them back into their body, how they were able to use it to kill the trauma. And I get, I think, you know, we sell out those events very quickly. So you have a large audience hearing these stories and again normalizing it. And it's all you can do, it takes time and all you can do. You know, I continue to do things like this podcast with you, in the hopes it keeps people keep going, "Oh my God she's kind of like me. She runs a public org, she runs a public company. You know, she must not be out of her mind."

Kendra: And so, you cut out a little bit earlier, so I'm not sure if you already said this, but just like is there any regulations or rules around like if. Cause I have a lot of friends in this community who have like gotten, I guess I don't the right word, they've been given permission...

Alison Gordon: Licenses.

Kendra: Or they've been able to start there like their zone, their warehouse or whatever it is.

Alison Gordon: Licensed, they have been licensed.

Kendra: They've been licensed.

Alison Gordon: And I don't think that many in Nelson have been licensed, so that's interesting.

Kendra: Yeah. There's a few, like the people I'm thinking of, like they've been licensed for a certain number of plants. And then, they have to go through like this whole thing where they have to like show that they have like the space, and like get that approved and like there's this whole thing. And they're kind of working through this process. But I was wondering, like what is like, is the regulation around like sharing that sort of thing on social media? Like if you were to have like, you know, open the warehouse and start growing legally, can you be set up an Instagram account?

Alison Gordon: Sure, I mean we have Instagram. You can go to the 48North Instagram. We do show pictures of our grow, especially the outdoor grow, cause that's exciting to be one of the few, like really I think there's like only five that have been licensed for outdoor and like our scale is huge. We're going on, you know, almost a hundred acres, so 3.5 million square feet. So it's to our knowledge, the largest legal outdoor grow in the world. So that's something like we're obviously documenting and showing on social media from time-to-time. You have two issues in social media, one is that Instagram, and/or Facebook, and others don't allow for weed to be shown. So many, many, many, many people do it. It's just a question of are you going to get caught, and your account shut down, and restart again, which has happened to many of my friends.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: And, and then the other issue is of course Health Canada and you know again it's just that fine line between showing, educating, and not being promotional.

Alison Gordon: No we can't. That's what I was saying. You can't, well Facebook doesn't allow you themselves Within Canada, that's what I was saying earlier, but I guess I cut out is, you are not allowed to market or advertise at all. You're not allowed to sponsor events. You're not allowed to. You know, in the U.S., you'll have certain brands naming their strains Calm or Energetic just to simplify it or the consumer.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: You can't do that in Canada. You can't make claims, like you can't do anything. So that's where Latitude or us starting up sort of auxiliary, you know, businesses to be able to educate is so critical to the mission.

Kendra: So, for like the small guys, like for people who, you know, maybe in Canada who are, you know, getting licenses and they're eventually going to be legal and be able to kind of start their own operations. Like I'm guessing, like their marketing strategy is going to have to kind of include a lot of what you guys are doing. Like they're going to have to like also work on like changing perception and making it relatable and that sort of thing. Right. You think that's correct?

Alison Gordon: Well, I mean I don't know. Hopefully as they come online, we've done good work. And we can we help change that? I think everybody has a role to play in that for sure. But, you know, , again, without truly boring your listeners, it is very weird to call this out in your community. Like what a lot of people try and forget, is that we grow for up to sit down and that still exists. So, I'm not sure what you're referring to when you talk about license. They're still growers who are growing for patients, but that's not really what they're doing. Right. So they're legally allowed this grow, and they're saying they're growing them for patients, but it very well, okay. You know,it might hit the black market, or illegal dispensaries, or whatever it is. I don't know. I don't want us to get rid of people that are growing for patients, and I'm making is that it's very difficult to actually get a license in Canada. Very, very difficult.

Kendra: Yeah. And it seems like, and I'm totally uneducated in the whole process and like, you know, I'm kind of just like, I'm hearing this through the grapevine and yeah, but from what the one thing I do understand, is that it sounds very complicated.

Alison Gordon: It's complicated and Canada's a highly regulated country. So you know, what do we have five banks, five cell phone companies. It's not going to be that there'll be thousands of these companies. What the government did put into effect last year was is the micro processing and micro grows. So you might, in referring to, you know, they're trying to license sort of small boroughs for people to transition from the black market.But these, you know, it's a very difficult business to be in because then you have to figure out how to get your products onto a shelf which runs to the governments and requires enough quantity.You know, it's like alcohol. It's like if you want to get your stuff in the LCBO Ontario and you only make a hundred bottles of something, that's very difficult for them to stock and spread out amongst their. So it's not, unfortunately the way it's structured today at business for small businesses.

Kendra: Right.

Alison Gordon: Certain verticals might be, meaning you might grow up very small, grow very, you know, good quality craft, cheap and then sell it to a company like mine who has the ability to take that and get that on to along with our other products. But the industry needs to evolve to allow for small businesses to take part in it.

Kendra: So that's something your company does. Like you might look at like a, like a micro grow and like take their product. And try to like help them like get it to a bigger market?

Alison Gordon: Well, I think what we would do potentially, is we just buy it from them. So we just buy wholesale. It's not like to help them get on the shell. Right. It's to supply us with the high quality input. That we can then use our brands for. You know,

Kendra: it just seems like it's complicated and there's a lot of gray area right now. Because I mean I'm sure lots of people are still selling on the black market and I'm sure the black market's going to be around for a few more years before it totally disappears. Right?

Alison Gordon: The legal market is not gray at all. It's black and white. Right. For the average person, the black market and the gray market. Like it's all bleeding into one.

Kendra: Yeah.Totally. Well thank you so much for having this conversation.

Alison Gordon: Thank you.

Kendra: I feel like I learned a lot. I also learned I'm way more ignorant about this industry than I thought I was. That's good. I'll have to do some more reading and I'll definitely be following you on Instagram. And how can our listeners get hold of you and learn more about 48North and Rethink?

Alison Gordon: Well they can definitely follow us on Instagram at 48North. I am on Instagram as cannabisculturist. Which is a bit hard to spell. But if you find your way to 48 North, I'm sure you'll find your way to me. I think there is a lot of, I know there's a lot of great resources online for people to understand the health and wellness aspect of cannabis. So I would just suggest Googling and like whether it's Leafly, or Miss Grass, or any of these other content producers. Like you'll find your way to good content to start to understand what you know cannabis can do for your life.

Kendra: Awesome. Well thank you so much. I really, really appreciate you taking the time out of your, I'm sure. Like you sound like a busy person, so we really appreciate it. And thank you to all the listeners and as always, we will see you again in one week on Wednesday with another awesome episode of the 360 Health Biz Podcast. Love you all, and we'll talk to you guys next time.

Welcome to the 360 Health Biz podcast's Biz Bomb where we give you a super quick actionable tip for your business.

Is Facebook marketing actually worth my time, and is Facebook marketing dead? The answer is yes and no. The reason why we still care about Facebook is because there are certain ways to leverage it that can very much be worth your time.

Facebook marketing isn't dead. Facebook is still worth your time, but just not in the same way that it once was. Facebook has changed, and of course we need to change with it.

Facebook wants to create community, engagement and community. And where do you get engagement and community? Facebook groups!

Facebook groups are 100% worth your time. Starting a free Facebook group is actually a really great way to position yourself as an expert and to start a two-way conversation with the people who are in the group. Community is fantastic because it not only allows you to create these real-time relationships with your ideal client, but it also allows them to create relationships with each other, which is a pretty powerful thing if you do it right.

So spend less time on your Facebook business page. Spend more time in Facebook groups, either other people's groups or your own group, your own free Facebook group that you created, and then eventually your paid Facebook group that connects to your group program, or your online course. That is what works on Facebook now!

Hey, guys. What's up? Welcome to the 360 Health Biz podcast. I'm Kendra, and I am here for your quick tip on Wednesday, your Biz Bomb. Our Biz Bomb series gives you a super quick actionable tip for your business. We don't waste your fucking time. We don't ramble on. We just give you the goods, and then we sign off.Okay. So today I wanted to quickly discuss Facebook and answer the question that people keep asking me. Is Facebook marketing actually worth my time, and is Facebook marketing dead? So the answer is yes and no. And we're going to just quickly dive into that right now, okay?Facebook marketing isn't dead. Facebook is still worth your time, but just not in the same way that it once was. Facebook has changed, and of course we need to change with it. So back in the day when I first started a Facebook page, so this is going to be like 2012 or 2011, it was very easy to market using your business page, so your Facebook business page, okay? There was a lot of organic reach so I was able to get a good following. This is when I had my blog Crazy Happy Healthy, which I no longer have, but it was very easy to get lots of likes. And you did get generally a lot of organic traffic. You could post something out there, people would see it. It was a great marketing strategy, okay? These days not so much. I actually have a prediction that Facebook is going to get rid of business pages at some point and they're only going to be used for people who are running ads, for example, okay? So organic reach through a Facebook business page is really, really not worth your time, okay? The caveat to that is it probably depends what industry you're in. But if you're a health coach and you're just starting out, I wouldn't be focusing all your efforts on your Facebook business page. Now, my partner, Ryan, he is a photographer and filmmaker. And because he has beautiful image, images, and he has a pretty engaged local following, he actually crushes it on his Facebook business page and he gets a ton of organic reach. He told me his last photo got like 3,000 reach and like a hundred comments, but that is not us, my friends, okay? And he's also built that over time.These days, what you might've noticed when you're throwing out a Facebook post on your business page is not many people see it. Even Facebook live, which used to be a huge thing and used to be the biggest bet for organic reach on Facebook, really doesn't get much traction anymore either. So I used to do a weekly Facebook live video. I don't actually do that anymore because I don't think it's worth my time, okay?But that's not to say Facebook is totally dead and it's not worth your time. The reason why we still care about Facebook is because there are certain ways to leverage it that can very much be worth your time. So Facebook is really moving towards an engagement-based platform, okay? So they favor more high-quality content that actually engages people. Facebook wants to create community, engagement and community, okay? And where do you get engagement and community? Facebook groups, okay?So Facebook groups are 100% worth your time. Starting a free Facebook group is actually a really great way to position yourself as an expert and to start a two-way, not a one-way, a two-way conversation with the people who are in the group. Community is fantastic because it not only allows you to create these real-time relationships with your ideal client, your followers, but it also allows them to create relationships with each other, which results in a community, which is a pretty powerful thing if you do it right. Community is huge, right? In the social media, a lot of people are busy online. People are in virtual reality. People don't really exist in communities in the real world like they used to back in the day, right? So people are really craving that community connection. And they want to connect not only with you but other people like them who are having that similar experience, right?As you know, a lot of us health coaches, we have our own personal health problem or journey, which is maybe why we got into health coaching, and I think we are all very aware that being sick and having health issues can be very isolating, make you feel very alone because your friends and family don't get it. They're like, "Oh, what do you mean? You eat healthy. You're the healthiest person I know." And meanwhile you're like, "I feel like a fucking pile of shit," right? It can feel very ... make people feel very alone, right? So in comes the Facebook group which gives them a virtual community.Some of the communities I've run, some of the members have actually met in person, which I think is amazing, right? They actually lived in the same town. They got together. They went got a coffee. They connected. I mean, I just think that is amazing, right? So, Facebook is still worth your time. We just have to utilize it differently based on what Facebook wants you to do, which is to build community and engagement, okay? So spend less time on your Facebook business page. Spend more time in Facebook groups, either other people's groups or your own group, your own free Facebook group that you created, and then eventually your paid Facebook group that connects to your group program, or your online course, or whatever it is. That is what works on Facebook now.So Facebook is not dead. Facebook is still worth your time, but everything's always changing. Facebook is always going to be changing, right? And we just need to be able to adapt and move with the time. So stop focusing on your page. Start a free Facebook group or start engaging in other Facebook groups that your ideal client might be hanging out with. Now, the caveat to that is don't go in there and be promotional and start promoting your services and spamming the group. That could very quickly get you kicked out of the group depending on the rules of the group. Make sure to familiarize. Familiarize yourself with the rules of the group. And even if they do allow promotions, don't just walk in there and be that spammy person who just starts trying to sell their things. Get in there. Engage with people. Get to know them. Help them answer their questions. Start to be seen as maybe the sort of expert of the group so that people might be like, "Hey, this person's very knowledgeable on this topic. I'm going to go check them out. Oh wow. They work with clients. I'm going to reach out to them," right? You do want to approach it in a way that you're building relationships with real humans. You are not being pushy. You are not starting with the pitch. You are not starting with the sale. You're not being spammy. But, Facebook groups are fantastic. I utilize them in my own business in my paid groups. I do not have a free Facebook group. It's not fully my thing. I like to build community other places, but that's just me. That may not be you. Facebook groups are a fantastic way to build a community. And for a lot of people I know who are utilizing Facebook groups properly, pretty much all their clients are coming to them from their Facebook group, okay?All right. I hope you found this episode helpful. If you are hanging out on IGTV with me right now, let me know in the comments if this was helpful. Tell me, do you have a Facebook group? Are you considering having a Facebook group? Let me know. And if you are on your smartphone listening to this on our podcast, screenshot the episode. Share it to your IG stories and mention @360healthbizpodcast, and we will share it to our stories. Just make sure to let us know what your biggest take-home was. And that way we know you liked this episode because we want to hear from you. We want to know that you want more episodes just like this one. All right. I hope you have a fantastic day, guys. And I will see you in one week with Christine for our next full episode.